Imperial Silver Needles

Tea: Imperial Silver Needles
Vendor: Imperial Tea Court
Price: $11.00 / oz
Source: Fujian, China
Vendor Description: To meet "Imperial" standards, our Yinzhen ("silver needle") White Tea is harvested from the Da Yeh ("big leaf") tea cultivar grown in the Fu-An area of Fujian province. This varietal grows unusually large leaf buds covered with white down. The leaves must be harvested in early spring and carefully sun-dried for several days before being given a sort of brief roasting over hardwood charcoal in order to remove residual moisture and, in effect, seal in the flavor. White tea has been found to be unusually high in anti-oxidants. Imperial Silver Needles White Tea is mild, soothing, and delicious.

Leaf: The leaf had a very nice appearance to it, the needles were very even and uniform. They had a very even coating of hairs and they were almost all nicely intact buds.

1st Infusion: The liquor was very light in color, although it was slightly murky due to the small "hairs" from the needle floating around. The tea has a very rich aroma, and although it is strong it was still a light aroma. The flavor was light yet very robust. The flavor is very strong and powerful, but the strong flavor was quite light, just like the aroma.

2nd Infusion: The leaves were very evenly expanding and showed that almost all of the needles were quite even. There were very few broken pieces, and the small pieces that were broken were all small bits, no half broken needles. The flavor in this infusion was actually much sweeter and had a light delicate feeling to it. It had a very clean feeling and a very clean white flavor.

Rating: 10/10

Conclusion: This was a very nice silver needle. The taste was light and clean, and yet strong. The leaf had a very nice appearance.

Tangerine Sencha

Tea: Tangerine Sencha
Vendor: Imperial Tea Court
Price: $8.75 / 4 oz.
Vendor Description: An instant hit with tea drinkers when first introduced, our naturally scented Tangerine Sencha has become one of the most popular selections in our San Francisco teahouse. Embraced by adults and children alike, Tangerine Sencha makes a perfect introduction to green tea and tastes great iced, too.


The tangerine sencha has a very nice aroma to the leaf. There are a few bits of orange peel added to the mix which increase the orange scent and add a bit of color, but compared to the picture on the imperial tea website, not nearly as much.

The liquor has a very yellow/orange color to it, a stark contrast to the deep murky greens of some other senchas that I have had recently. It also carries over the orange scent from the leaf to the liquor. There is a very strong citrus aftertaste to this tea, but the citrus flavor is proceeded by a moderately strong bitterness. The tea leaves with a moderately light astringent feeling. All in all this feels like a good flavor pairing.

Rating: 6/10

Conclusion: The flavor of this tea is nothing spectacular, but relatively on par with being a flavored sencha. The price is rather low which makes this tea a bit more attractive. All in all I believe that it could use a bit more orange flavoring added to make a bolder tea.

Sencha

Tea: Sencha
Vendor: Imperial Tea Court
Price: $7 / 4oz.
Vendor Description:A unique and well-known style of green tea popularized in Japan. Sencha's deep green color and distinctively fresh, grassy flavor come from special steam processing during manufacture.

I was at first a bit leery of trying out a sencha from a primarily Chinese tea vendor. The Imperial Tea court had a very good reputation from what I had read and heard so I figured I would give them a shot. (I actually did pick up some Chinese teas as well, those will come later).

The sencha seemed to have a very front loaded taste, most of the flavor of the tea occurred right off the bat with little depth and aftertaste to the tea. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, it is simply different than the most of the longer deeper teas I have been having recently. The flavor was very short lived and brisk with a medium sense of bitterness. I would say that it is a very good starting point of sencha. It is simple inexpensive and a good representation of a sencha.

Rating: 8/10

Conclusion: While this tea is not the deep symphony that some other teas strive to be, it's low price and simple nature make it deserve a good rating. It is a simple sencha and indicative of the style of tea.