Background

The Aged Silver Needle Cake from Sanhe Tea Co. is a 2021 pressed white tea made from Jinggu Da Bai Cha cultivar, harvested in spring from large-leaf tea trees in Jinggu, Yunnan. Featuring large, trichome-covered buds, this tea offers a sweet, peachy taste with a soft, sweet aroma. It has a low to medium oxidation level and was compressed into a cake for aging potential and storage convenience. It delivers a smooth, silky liquor with a progression of infusions that reveal increasing depth and body.

Personal Connection – George’s Notes

This is a tea from the trip to China I took in the summer of 2023 and was inspired by one of the first teas which really made me want to learn more about higher quality teas, Yunnan Black tea. More specifically one particular one from an area of Yunnan called – Jinngu.

I dreamt that one day I would go on my own tea hunting mission to find the producer of such a tea and now after nearly 8 years I was on my way to discover it! A long 5 hour bus ride later through bumpy and winding roads we made it to Jinggu where we were welcomed by Sanhe Tea Company and we then spent the day with them learning about the tea they are producing and visiting their tea gardens and factory.

The assumption when there is a foreigner looking for tea in Yunnan that the focus is Pu’er but once we shared that actually Silver Needle white tea and Da Hong (Black Tea) were the preference we got down to tasting the mission objective. While we were unsuccessful in the rediscovery of a long lost tea friend we did find a fantastic 2021 Silver Needle White Tea Cake which George bought two tongs or 14 x 357g Cakes of and has been slowly chipping away at since returning from that trip.

The smooth and silkiness of the texture of the liquor and aromas that open up from that tea are just superb and are ones which pair with the body feeling which is rather interesting. Among friends and family I call this type of Silver Needle tea ‘Brain Juice’. For some reason, more than any other tea I have tried, this tea enables a mental acuity like no other I have experienced in a tea. If I need to do some particularly taxing coding or I need to come up some creative solutions for a project, this is the tea which I reach for.

As it is pressed into a cake, it makes for easy and compact storage for the long term and while now at 4 years there is a common standard in Chinese culture that 3 years is medicine and 7 years is treasure, I aim to try and keep at least 1 cake for aging to 7 years!

Brewing Recommendations

To brew this tea, use a moderate amount of leaves in a Gaiwan with porcelain cups and water of medium mineral content. Start with a quick rinse to awaken the leaves. Begin steeping at a lower temperature for a longer time, then gradually shorten the steeping duration for the next infusion while maintaining the same temperature. As the session progresses, slowly increase both the water temperature and steeping time to draw out the remaining flavors. This approach allows the tea to unfold gradually, highlighting its evolving character over multiple infusions.