This is tea #3 from the selection of four I first talked about in this post: http://gluttonette.com/?p=265
I’ve had various golden needle teas before, but I’ve never brewed them myself. The long, spiky leaves aren’t really ideal for a one-cup infuser, but it worked out. I was struck by a brief wave of OCD desire to steep them vertically, but I managed to control myself.
Dry, this tea is very much a noseful of hay. Not dry, dead, hay, though, but grassy, sweet and springy. In the cup, it’s a very nice, smooth, elegant black. This is the kind of tea I’d keep at home, if I wanted to have a good basic black tea around – not overly characteristic, but with more sophistication and appeal than the average bag of leaves.
But, as it happens, I don’t feel much of a need to keep a good basic black around. I want more complexity and more surprises. I’ve finished the cup, and it was definitely nice and smooth – yes. I can see myself finishing the roughly 2 oz. I have left, potentially in a breakfast situation – yes. But it doesn’t really excite me, and there are many teas I would pick over it. My lower rating, in other words, has to do with my own preferences and not so much with the quality of the tea itself.
[Purchased/gifted at Teavana in Honolulu, January 2013.]
Boiling, 3 min