Hey teaheads.
This is Don from Mei Leaf.
In THIS video: How to choose Silver Needle tea.
In this video I'm going to be SHARING with you some of my VISUAL tips on how you can
spot higher QUALITY Silver Needle.
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Silver Needle - also known as Bai Hao Yin Jen - is pretty much UNIVERSALLY sold in ANY
self-respecting tea shop.
But I thought it would be USEFUL to give YOU GUYS some of my visual tips on how you can
spot HIGHER QUALITY tea.
Now, of course, at the end of the day it all boils down to TASTE.
But there ARE some visual secrets that YOU can use to increase your chances of getting
a higher quality BATCH of tea.
I've got some tea sample here that we're going to take a closeup look of, but BEFORE we DO
THAT let's quickly talk about the PROCESSING of Silver Needle tea.
Silver Needle is normally produced in FuDing, in FuJian province, although you CAN buy Silver
Needle from other PROVINCES in China, and OTHER COUNTRIES in the world.
It's USUALLY made from the Da Bai cultivar, because the Da Bai cultivar has very THICK,
JUICY buds.
If you imagine the bud that SPROUTS and FLUSHES in the springtime contains ALL the layers
that will eventually become LEAVES of the tea plant.
Now if you PLUCK that bud at the right time, when it's at its THICKEST and JUICIEST, before
it starts to open up into leaves, then you can produce really high quality Silver Needle.
Pick TOO LATE, and the bud has already started to open up, and you're getting leaves, so
you have the choice of KEEPING the leaves ON, or having a more slender bud.
If you pick it TOO EARLY then the bud is too SMALL, and the tea is too WEAK.
After they PICK the bud they then WITHER and DRY it.
That sounds very SIMPLE, but THAT process is DECEPTIVELY detailed.
The REASON for that is that they want to TIME the withering and drying process EXACTLY so
that it had the RIGHT LEVEL of OXIDATION.
If that process takes too LONG - because the leaf is too WET, or it's a wet DAY outside
- then the leaf, or the bud, will start to oxidize TOO MUCH, and start to go BLACK or
RED, and have TOO STRONG a flavour.
If the weather conditions are very HOT and DRY then the bud might wither TOO QUICKLY,
and then you'll get a WEAK tea.
So they have to be WORKING.
The producers have to WORK with the WEATHER and the ENVIRONMENT to try and get the wither
time EXACTLY RIGHT to produce high quality tea.
So they will work with different ways, trying to ROAST the tea if the weather is too WET,
or trying to SHADE the tea if it's too HOT, to try and get that wither time right.
You will SPOT those little TRICKS they're using in the FINAL PRODUCT.
So let me pull the camera ON TOP, and we're going to take a CLOSEUP look of these samples.
Here are SIX Silver Needle samples.
I've included the DRY leaf here I've ALSO included the BREWED leaf so you can see what
it looks like AFTER it's been infused.
And I've PRISED open the buds so you can see the LAYERS contained within.
The FIRST thing you want to be looking for is the CONSISTENCY of the sample.
HERE we have lots of BROKEN LEAF.
We have LEAF and BUD.
THIS one is SLIGHTLY better.
This one is MOSTLY bud, but you can see there's STILL a fair amount of BROKEN leaf in there.
Whereas THESE samples here are 90 to 100 percent bud; so MUCH MORE consistent that’s what
we're looking for.
The next thing is colour.
THIS sample here is INCONSISTENT.
There's RED and BLACK parts.
There's a YELLOW colour, as well as the WHITE and the GREEN.
So you're getting a very INCONSISTENT colour profile.
This is SLIGHTLY better.
And again, we're IMPROVING here.
But THESE three samples have MUCH more CONSISTENCY of colour, and the colour ITSELF is MUCH more
desirable, LESS of yellow and red hues, and much more of this LIGHTER white and greens,
ESPECIALLY with this sample here which is definitely the HIGHER QUALITY in terms of
colour.
The NEXT thing that we look for is the TEXTURE of the buds.
Now THESE higher quality samples have MUCH THICKER, downy, white hairs than these.
If I try to take a small sample and put it on a PLATE for you to look up in closeup.
See how close up I can get to this.
You can see here that the WHITE HAIRS are much more PRONOUNCED, much THICKER, whereas
HERE the downy hairs are much THINNER, and just LESS OBVIOUS.
You WANT to be looking for THICKER and FLUFFIER hair.
Okay.
The NEXT thing that we want to be looking for is the ACTUAL SIZE and SHAPE of the buds.
We want to find very THICK buds that contain many LAYERS of leaf.
Now don't be fooled, because THIS one may LOOK quite thick, but ACTUALLY, when you start
to look at it in CLOSE UP - I'm going to TRY and see if I can focus on my finger here - you
can see that the bud is actually ENCASED with a leaf.
So EVEN THOUGH it looks THICK, the bud is actually encased with a leaf.
THAT shows that these buds were picked TOO LATE, so the buds had a chance to start to
open up and create a leaf.
You can SEE that when you prise it open like this.
You can see that THIS is no longer a very thin bud, but is ACTUALLY a LEAF here, and
so this was picked TOO LATE.
THESE samples HERE are MUCH more what you want to see, so THICK, FULL BUDS.
This one HERE is what we see in a LOT of tea shops, where it LOOKS quite pretty, but ACTUALLY
the buds are very THIN and SLENDER, and don't have much going on inside them.
Which makes me think that this was actually a summer-picked tea.
In the SPRING the bud contains all of the layers of leaf, and when you PICK it it's
very THICK, and AFTER you've picked it SOMETIMES the producers will go back in the SUMMERTIME
and the NEXT buds that come out - because they're not preparing to produce lots of leaves
- are actually a LOT THINNER, and don't produce SUCH delicious tea.
Whereas THESE ones here - ESPECIALLY this one if you look once we've prised open this
one - the RATIO, in terms of the SIZE, is very, very SIMILAR here.
It's a very THICK and ROBUST bud.
This is really the SIZE and SHAPE of the bud we are looking for, but ALL of these samples
are good.
What I THINK has happened HERE is that they've picked this on the RIGHT DAY - so they've
picked it at EXACTLY the right time - but it must have been a very WET day, because
you can see that the EDGES, or the STEMS of THIS sample actually have gone BLACK.
This one took TOO LONG to WITHER, and therefore the edges have started to OVER-OXIDIZE.
Whereas these ones here MAYBE were picked a DAY LATE, but it was the right CONDITIONS,
and so the wither time and drying time was PERFECT to get that beautiful level of oxidation,
and maintain this lovely SHEEN and COLOR.
So I would certainly be selecting out of three samples, and leaving these ones ALONE, because
too thin buds and yellow and inconsistent.
THESE are the kinds of samples that I would be tasting from, and from there it would be
a matter of TASTE PREFERENCE.
So I HOPE that gives you a better understanding of the things that YOU should be looking for
when you go shopping for Silver Needle.
That's it teaheads.
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Thank you for being a part of the revelation of true tea.
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Bye.