All,
I was lucky enough to recieve some of In Pursuit of Tea's Silver Needle Beencha, and wow. The stuff is legendarily good..
Water: Boiling Leaf: 1.5 Tablespoons Pot: Thermos w/ Filter
First Infusion: 3 minutes Second Infusion: 3 Minutes Third Infusion: 10 minutes Fourth Infusion: >10 minutes
The first steeping had a very clean earthy flavor with the aftertaste so famous of white tea, light honey and floral falvors for 10 minutes after the last sip. In the second steeping, the earthy flavor is replaced by a slight astringency with a similar and more pronounced aftertaste. On reflection, this steep could have been a bit shorter, perhaps even 1 minute. The third infusion started to taste more like an oolong than a pu-erh, or a white tea, but had the same signature Silver Needle aftertaste. This may have been residual from the previous cups. In the fourth steep, this tea-- based on color-- still had some potency, but started to taste more traditionally like a black tea, I might go so far as to say Lipton. However, the Silver Needle aftertaste was still present (slightly), and there was still a faint honeysuckle aroma. In fact, it makes me think after this tea has been steeped for hot enjoyment a few times, it could be used to make an extremely good Iced Tea (rather than throwing the leaves out). (But how to store the leaves?)
This tea deserves to be explored by me with multiple extremely short steepings. It is quite a high maintenance tea, partly due to the price but mostly due to the transformations that occur in the flavor profile during steeping. In the first 6 minutes, I expect this tea's flavor to undergo many transformations, some of which I may have missed out on due to my steep timing. I have about 1 tablespoon left, so I may try one minute steepings with this tea to pin down how the flavors are transforming.
It is also clear that soon I need to be getting more of this stuff. Does anyone know the difference, if there is any, between IPOT's Silver Needle Beencha, and Teaspring's Yinzhen Tea Cake? Of course, besides the clear price difference. They appear to weigh the same. Also, there appears to be a White Puerh at Pu-Erhtea.com which has no price. That's probably not a good thing. It seems the sources of these teas are sometimes purposefully obscured? By the way, I might be willing to go halves on one of these, if anyone is interested.
Descriptions:
IPOT
This eye catching beencha (cake) is made up of only unopened leaf buds. The familer disc shape breaks apart easily allowing one to steep this as they would any loose leaf tea. Actually a green puerh, the flavor is much fuller than the other green Pu erh cakes.
Teaspring
Many would believe that Yinzhen Tea Cake is a White Pu-erh but it is actually a Green Pu-erh. This tea is produced from lightly oxidized unopened Yunnan leaf buds which are then compressed into shapes of round discs for easy storing and aging. The infusion carries a light malty flavor, a reminiscence of Yunnan Gold tea. Our Yinzhen Tea Cake is from Six Famous Tea Mountain, one of the most popular brand in China at the moment.