Comparing Laos and Nepal white teas

Moonlight white lower left, Laos top, Nepal tea bottom left

This tasting was about getting to a few teas I've been meaning to try for awhile.  Anna of Kinnari Teas passed on teas at the end of last year, some versions that were sold as Kinnari teas and some that she had ran across in travels in Laos.  Her teas are great.  Laos teas are great, in general.  If this government initiative to support that industry works out you'll have broader access to try some, but don't hold your breath; SE Asian government projects take time.

Another friend, Somnuc Amnousinh, passed on some Laos teas I've written about as well.  He's not a vendor, just a tea enthusiast who gets out, and related to that he shared some great versions from Laos.  This black tea version works as a good example; it's a crying shame that anyone being able to order that tea online is only a distant dream.  If it sounds too good to miss then you need to get on a plane and fly to Laos.

The third is a Nepal tea, shared by a small producer friend there, Narendra Kumar Gurung.  His teas are produced through a Highlanders Farmers Private Limited tea-coop, which I said more about in this post, sold labeled as Barbote teas.  This review of a black tea version conveys how unique and well-made those teas are, just amazing they could be that good so early in their production history.  It's not as if he is new to growing tea though, and processing very good tea is nothing new in the local Nepal industry.  "Very good" is all relative; in this case I mean in the sense of not giving up much in terms of Darjeeling quality standards, or maybe as good but just different in style.  To me that's impressive.


It is nice knowing such interesting and diverse people through exploring tea interest.  Now that I think of it I've written about all three of these people in one other post about meeting interesting tea friends, here.

I've not actually met Narendra in person yet, and there really is an extra depth to that form of experience.  But it can still be nice sharing ideas through messages, and I've tried his teas, which have all been very nice.  It's probably luck of the draw as much as anything but all of the Nepal teas I've tried, not just his, were very pleasant, distinctive, and somewhat consistent in style ranges.  I won't add more about that background, though, since there's plenty of review to get to.

One of these is a Moonlight white and two are silver tips style teas (buds-only white, not so different than silver needle, but I take that to be a more type-specific reference).  It's odd comparing diverse tea types like that, just sharing being white tea.  The plan was for the contrast to make sense, for the Moonlight White to stand out for being type-typical and nothing like the other two, and then for them to make sense related to each other, with the contrasting descriptions as a base that fills in more about character.  It sort of didn't work out like that, but that's part of it too, seeing how things go.

Review

I used about a 30 second infusion time for the first round, which would be way too long for the shengs I've been drinking more of lately, but for these they'll just be getting started infusing in that time.

Laos Moonlight White (Kinnari Tea):  the tea is great, as expected.  It leans more towards spice than I thought it would, since I was expecting more fruit, but that works too, and the fruit will probably develop more over the next two rounds.  This is warm and earthy enough that it could easily be an aged tea version, it's just not, similar in some limited ways to a well-transitioned shou mei.  It's nice, distinctive and sweet.  As near as I can tell based on drinking a light initial infusion it's well balanced.  I'll do more with an aspect list next round.

I didn't take a picture of the dry teas before reviewing them, a bit of a lapse.  As memory serves this looked similar to Oriental Beauty in color scheme as these teas go, with dark, reddish, and brown leaf colors, not limited to silver and black as is typical for Moonlight White.  I really should take another photo since I have more at home, and may edit this to include one if I end up posting it before I do. 

I didn't do much with photos at all in this tasting; I'm not sure why not, since I am in the habit.  It probably related to family-originated background noise; I can't always wait for the kids to clear out somewhere to try and write notes about teas, and it's really hard to focus with piano playing, banging around, and screaming in the background.  It's like having wild animals in the house.

the sweet little noise makers out for pizza recently

Laos silver tip (or silver needle, if you like):  this is labeled "Yanchaw W;" I don't know what that part means).  For once this silver tips version doesn't taste vaguely like straw and flowers.  A good bit of spice comes across in this tea, even more so than in the Moonlight version, which included more spice than anything else.  Strange.  If anything the proportion is slightly lower for this white and it seems more intense than the Moonlight (although without weighing the teas that's just a guess, a guess that will be more informed once I see the fully saturated leaf volume, when it will still be just a guess).

I'm wondering if this wasn't contaminated by being stored too close to something else, the taste range is so unexpected and intense.  There were tisanes in that storage box too and one in particular was aromatic, an unusual form of compressed fruit tisane bar.  I had some pu'er and other long-term stored teas well isolated in a cabinet, and other samples and in-progress versions in a moderately sealed box in that same cabinet, and miscellaneous samples and boxes piling up all over the place, and my wife collected the strays into one storage box.  It would be odd if this whole review was about flavor the tea picked up along the way, and it's as much an actual possibility as a funny thing to say at this point.  These Laos sample teas from Somnuc were stored in plastic bags similar to ziplock bags, and those are a bit permeable, not a great moderate-term storage solution, and this has been around for a few months now.


Nepal silver needle:  this is interesting, distinctive, and pleasant; not on the weak side for being an initial round.  It does taste floral and like dried hay, so it is what I expect as a default from bud-only white teas, but a touch of unique range mineral seems to give away the Nepal origin.  There's a hint of citrus in it too, a dried peel that could be tangerine versus a sweet version of orange:  that's nice.  I'll leave off the longer descriptions to do a full list for all next time.

Laos Moonlight White left, Laos white middle, Nepal tea on the right

Second infusion

Moonlight white:  fruit isn't necessarily filling in yet but a nice savory sweetness similar to sundried tomato is.  That's primary; the spice range isn't as noticeable, and really at this point it requires imagination to split out the rest further.  Free associating a little to get to that:  milder spice is present, and some degree of light floral, but a sweet version of it, something like violet, or instead like a light version of lavendar.  Fruit is closest to dried apricot; to me that part does stand out.


Laos silver needle:  I hate to say it but this does taste like the spice in a tisane blend I tried not long ago, something really novel from Moychay, a pressed fruit bar that was quite heavy on spice (listed here with a description cut short since it's sold out).  This might be a rare case of an aborted review, leaving off as a warning about combined storage, especially if one of the teas isn't well-sealed.  Using ziplock style bags can be a problem; not much of the rest of how teas are stored is as open to being affected like that.  The tea is quite nice, for what that's worth; that hint of spice works well with the rest.  If it is natural it's a unique, positive aspect of this tea.  It's probably not (more guesswork), and most likely a happy accident that the flavor cross-contamination was positive.


Nepal silver needle:  the mineral, light floral, sweetness, hint of dried citrus peel, and dried hay all works together.  It's a distinctive profile that seems familiar.  I'd probably have to brew it stronger to draw out a thicker feel but it doesn't necessarily come across as thin, I've just accustomed to sheng lately, which are even more multi-dimensional.  I will let this run over another 30 seconds to get plenty of infusion strength out of it.


Third infusion

Kinnari Moonlight White:  more of the same, mainly savory, towards sun-dried tomato, with a bit of spice under that.  Or it could seem more like autumn forest floor:  warm, sweet, and rich, clean flavored but earthy.  Using either as a main flavor-range interpretation (or more likely seeing it as covering both for range) there's a hint of spice as well, closest to cinnamon, but also not so far off nutmeg.  Reviewers with a great imagination would add a lot to that, aspects like warm floral tone or rich berry, like blackberry, maybe closer to that than apricot in this round.  I thought it might be even fruitier but at least it does get to a little of that.


Laos silver needle:  I'm dropping this out of the review process; it tastes like warm spice and fruit, way too close to that Moychay tisane pressed bar.  Now that I think of it that tisane bar would be perfect for mixing with an inexpensive white tea to convert it to a flavored version.  To some that would seem like an unnatural act, way off their own preference, and I tend to not drink teas along that line much myself.  But it seems to work in this, and it's not even brewed together, seemingly just picking up a trace of flavor transferred across two layers of packaging.


Nepal silver needle:  the mix of flavors seems to evolve to include a bit of fruit.  The light tangerine peel aspect already was that, but it seems more pronounced and complex in this round.  It's a bit non-distinct, since it is coming across along with all the rest (mineral, dried hay, etc.), and since the profile extends to light floral too.  I'll guess out a range for that fruit as dried citrus fruit itself, versus the peel, maybe closest to blood orange, quite warm and sweet.

apparently I didn't feel like taking pictures that day

Fourth infusion


This will do for a final take; it's enough tea, even though these are probably only more or less half finished.  Using the longer infusion times would limit the count, so it won't make it to over a dozen as sheng tastings have (which brews a lot of tea too).  White teas are often durable related to what can be brewed from them compared to black teas.  Oolongs are in the middle; it just depends on the type.

Moonlight white:  other than fading a little the general effect is the same.  Even that change could result from a variance in infusion time, from not keeping track.


Nepal silver needle:  still in the same range, but the balance keeps shifting.  Mineral might be stronger than the rest in this round (a flinty / limestone sort of range mineral, lighter stone), with light citrus, dried hay, and floral tone standing out, more or less in that order.  It's quite flavorful as buds-only white teas go, in a range that's pleasant.

Conclusions

I really liked all three teas.  The Moonlight wasn't what I expected but it was nice.  For amounting to a tea storage glitch the Laos white was very pleasant.  I probably never will carry through on using that tisane for making a homemade blended version, mixing it with tea, but it would be great for that, and I tend to just not think along those lines.  I did mention in writing about it elsewhere (another story I'll get to) that the fruit tisane bar might work well for adjusting the flavor of a masala chai, doing a fruit-adjusted version of spiced tea.  That I might get to; it's interesting messing around with versions of those.

The Nepal tea was better than I expected, although I probably should've expected that character.   Buds-only whites so often come across as relatively flavorless to me that I don't start with high hopes but Nepal teas are often on the intense side, and Narendra's other versions have been really pleasant.  Someone with more exposure to Nepal white teas would've done more with placing that, comparing it to other range.  In the past I've been more of a fan of the really intense bud and fine leaf Nepal white versions, which can be heavier yet on citrus fruit with a cool mineral undertone, as Narendra's version of that type was.


Many thanks again to those three friends for sharing those teas.

at a local temple with a visitor recently

probably time to get back to a haircut theme

same week, same temple (Wat Pho), different visit

a photo with my wife and a very respected local monk

Kinnari Tea Silver Cloud and Silver Cloud Sticky Rice (Laos white teas)

Going back through samples I'd forgotten I had so many teas I’ve yet to try from Kinnari Tea (good Laos teas; it doesn't get much more interesting than that).  It's around Spring harvest and production time now, so almost onto the next versions, but I'd like to say more about the others since they all look interesting.  The two I just tried are a white tea and a sticky rice white tea.  Another I didn't get to is a green-tea based version of an Earl Grey, and there's a pu'er style tea.  I'll get on all that.

I'll do the review first here (two, really), and get back to the vendor description of what the "sticky rice" component relates to.  Sticky rice is common enough here but I might explain what that is first.  It's formal name is glutinous rice, and sticky rice is considered by some to be a rough translation, but to me it's sticky rice.

The actual rice is like that:  sticky.  My kids love fried chicken with sticky rice as a side, and I often eat sticky rice steamed in a banana leaf along with banana and black bean.  I had that for breakfast yesterday; today it was fresh papaya with cashew nut toffee topped cake.  That rice tastes a bit neutral, as rice tends to, with the texture standing out more than the flavor.

This review will cover the plain "Silver Cloud" version first since I tried it first, then on to comparing the two.

the Silver Cloud (non-sticky-rice)

Silver Cloud review

The vendor description listed "cereal" as a flavor element.  Sounds different.  The whole aspect listing included "clean, delicate, energy, cereal, umami," with that last really coming into play in this review, or maybe more in the second tasting.  It looks like a typical buds-only silver needle / silver tips style tea, maybe just a little darker than some, which doesn't really seem to clearly mean one thing.  It could be oxidized a bit more than usual, but then that's not really even an informed guess, just thinking out loud.  More about the tea style will come up in the vendor description, at the end.

The taste is smooth, with a "round" feel, and a bit unique in scope.  Cereal really does describe a main aspect of it.  That seems to link up with the malt range, not the bold, sharp malt in astringent black teas, more the soft, approachable malt in a malted milk ball or milkshake.  It's not completely different than an aspect people tend to describe as pastry-like, but cereal describes it better for this tea.

There are interesting supporting elements, maybe just a hint of citrus under there, and different layers to that mild earthiness.  It's almost a little creamy, which goes well with that cereal, as much a texture as a taste, but a bit of both.

It's a subtle tea, as whites often are, but not subtle in the sense that it emphasizes body and feel as a main aspect and you need to struggle to pick up flavors, just more about defining what's going on.

I'm brewing it Western style using relatively long steeps, in the 4-5 minute range, versus going even longer as people sometimes do (so nothing like the vendor suggestion, based on checking that later).  One could probably achieve slightly different effects and the same ramped-up intensity using a concentrated Gongfu approach, a high proportion of tea and times varying based on preference.  It did change character brewing it Gongfu style when trying it again along with the other version; I'll get to that part.

On the second infusion flavors ramped up just a bit.  The citrus steps forward a little compared to that cereal aspect.  It had a relatively full body the first time, but now it gains even more of that, so it starts to match that structure / feel that occurs in types of teas, some part of it.  I'm not sure what other tea this reminds me of though.  Maybe it doesn't seem a lot like any other I've tried.  It's funny how far it is from those white teas from Nepal I reviewed not long ago, all three great teas, but very different in lots of ways.

I've been going on about how some teas are aromatic, versus emphasizing flavors, and this isn't about that.  It has a fullness that comes across partly in the feel.  I think some aromatic range helps fill that in, and contributes a little to the “complex” effect.  Someone really interested in aftertaste would surely shuffle that in there, but to me it’s only slightly interesting that some teas have tastes that linger, or even shift a little from what is tasted during drinking to a different related aftertaste.

The tea has a savory, umamai-range aspect to it but I'm not really having luck describing that in terms of a taste range.  It seems to combine into the other complexity, to sort of serve as a background for it.

On the next infusion it seems to shift just a little more.  It's hard to place but there really is some common ground between this tea and black teas.  Cereal is still present, but with citrus picked up and more subdued earth and mineral tones kicking in it's now complex in a different way.  Maybe there's a touch of that toffee type sweetness that can come out in black teas as well, which can be pronounced when you switch to brewing a bit off boiling point for a few infusions to going to full boiling at the end to ramp up the intensity.  But it's grounded in a white tea context of flavors and character, so much different.  The savory / umami element still isn't standing out tied to a specific flavor.  But then it seems possible I could re-taste this tea made exactly the same way and describe it differently, related to both that and other elements.

I'll cut this review description short and move on to how tasting it alongside the "sticky rice" version went, this time prepared using a Gongfu style brewing approach.

Comparison tasting the two versions

Silver Cloud left, Sticky Rice variation right (brewed lightly)

The ordinary silver cloud version is more savory than I remember it (from the day before yesterday; funny how that seems further back).  It's not a background element, prepared this way, it stands out as a primary characteristic.  There's a good bit of sun dried tomato aspect, an actual flavor related to that range, even brewed lightly.  Brewed a little stronger that extends to an earthy and mineral fullness, almost a trace of dryness.  

I'm wondering how much difference relates to a brewing approach change versus just variations in my interpretation.  I'm preparing it Gongfu style this time versus Western, using a higher proportion of tea to water and shorter times.  I'm stretching out the timing past the short infusion times for other types, not 15 to 30 seconds per infusion, but starting over a minute and moving up from there. 

The vendor advice for preparing both teas is the same, here shown on the sticky rice version label, nothing like I made these teas either time.  So much for making a science of this.

The dry leaf sticky rice version smells like toasted rice. Brewed that taste is actually in between toasted rice and popcorn, even just a little buttery, or maybe I'm imagining that part.  It works well with the rest of the profile.  It's funny how the Silver Cloud seems to emphasize that savory element a lot made this way but the Sticky Rice version not so much.  I suppose it's there as an underlying element but nowhere near the same intensity.

Both teas don't need to be brewed to a high infusion strength to get a lot of flavor out of them, so although I did ramp up the infusion time some rounds and try them made different ways they work well brewed lightly.  The effect changed a good bit between being brewed lightly versus stronger, more related to the feel and effect of the Silver Cloud version, that savory element.  That tea's structure (feel) also changed, and an underlying mineral layer contribution picked up.  The Sticky Rice version stayed soft, and didn't change as much at different infusion strengths.

The label description for the Sticky Rice version (above) lists coconut and spice, which I didn't mention.  Brewing it per the instructions might have shifted the profile a little (or a lot), and really just paying more attention might've helped.  I made this tea during a work-day morning, not the ideal time for a tasting, especially with a medium-to-high level of drama as background with two kids getting ready for school.  

To me a soft fullness, sweetness, and popcorn / toasted rice aspects stood out in the Sticky Rice version.  That last part sort of invokes an element in Longjing, but the rest of the character was nothing like that tea type.  Altogether it does make one wonder about preparation style and the vendor take on the tea, which I'll cover next.

sticky rice, black bean and banana (how to make it and photo credit)

Kinnari Tea input about these teas

Silver Cloud description (partial citation):

Gentle, bright yellow first cup, growing intensity of aroma and color over the subsequent infusions: cooked sweet corn, sacha inchi nut, young ginger root, and freshly baked bread. Lingering sweetness and balmy texture all the way through. Peaks of spicy briskness above 85°C and for long infusions.

... We recommend to start off at 80-85°C with an infusion time of about 2-3 minutes. For further infusions, time and temperature can be increased carefully - additional heat and time can release tannic bitterness and astringency from the bud, a desired quality to some, but not to everyone.

Silver Cloud Sticky Rice description:

... the leaves of a local aromatic plant are added, infusing the tea with the aroma of sticky rice cooked in sweet coconut milk.... Gentle, bright yellow first cup, growing intensity of aroma and color over the subsequent infusions. Dominant aroma of sticky rice cooked in sweet coconut milk. Background: cooked sweet corn, sacha inchi nut, young ginger root, and freshly baked bread.

Lots going on there, even though I skipped the parts about growing conditions.  The teas are from Paksong, in the Bolaven Plateau region, with more about the local growing environment in that content.  The sticky rice taste is from an herb; interesting.

I didn't pick up all those aspect they mentioned, but then the Silver Cloud did vary a lot due to preparing it two different ways.  I didn't get the impression I'd exhausted possible descriptions, or really took all the complexity in.  I hadn't read that description before tasting it but that "cooked sweet corn" description did come across as popcorn, that light sweetness in fresh popped popcorn, not the toastier effect if you pop it in a pan and cook it a little longer.  I don't know what sacha inchi nut even is; maybe I was tasting that.  The related range in the tea seemed similar to the mild fullness of macadamia nuts, for what that's worth.  

I guess the sticky rice aspect could've included some coconut character.  Although the taste of sticky rice is a bit neutral it's not that far off that, especially a toasted version of it.  Usually one doesn't prepare sticky rice as toasted but I re-warm that banana / black bean / sticky rice in a toaster oven, and if the time is set long those can brown a little. 

I won't segue too far into processing discussion, but that Kinnari Tea owner did make an interesting comment in discussion about that, related to the Silver Cloud:

depending on your definition of white and green tea, it could be considered as a single bud green tea, since it's very lightly toasted (dried over low fire on a hot metal plate).

So there's that!  Lots going on with those teas.  Not to beat up the point but I like white teas that you don't have to strain to taste flavor aspects in, that you tend to mostly "feel" instead, and these more than fulfilled that criteria.

Comparing two Himalayan Tea Shop white teas from Nepal

tea described as "silver"

silver tips version

More teas from Nepal, trying out the last of those samples from the Himalayan Tea Shop.

As background, the business founder, Arpan Kambu, is a from a tea selling family there, a younger guy striking out on his own.  The upside is that this is unique form of relatively direct sales, buying tea from an industry insider in a lesser developed tea source country.  The downside is transparency; the details related to the teas and tea sourcing aren't clear, at least this early in the evolution of his business.

Of course most retail tea vendors don't give clear, explicit, complete details about tea sources, and anything less than that isn't as transparent as it would seem at a glance.  One of these teas could use more branding for description purposes, just for saying what it is, but the main point is the tea, so onto more on the those.

Review

One is a silver tip style tea (I'm not sure how descriptive that is as a category; a buds-only white tea), the other made of buds and small leaves, described only as a silver tea.  Typically silver tip teas are seen as a higher grade, harder to make, and more desirable, but the additional complexity of characteristics from including fine leaf matter can be a good thing.  We'll see.  I just read an interesting blog post claiming that both may not be a "true" white teas, from Tea For Me Please:


The Chinese definition of white tea stipulates that it must be grown in Fujian and made from the Da Bai variety of the tea plant. This definition was established at a time when China was the only producer of white tea. Now that we have white teas coming out of other regions like Ceylon and Darjeeling it becomes a bit of a gray area.


Either way, what's in a name, or in this case type-category.

Both teas are interesting, both quite different.  It makes you wonder how closely the sources are related.  Let's check on comparing appearance to another tea sold as a Shangrila White, reviewed in this post:

Shangrila White (reviewed awhile back)

Looks pretty similar, but who knows.  It could be from a producer listed on this site, but even if so that information is not very descriptive.  On to tasting.


The silver tip tea is earthier than teas made from only buds tend to be.  It's light and subtle, kind of how that always goes, with nice sweetness, but the range can often be light hay, sunflower seed, and maybe a touch of floral, and this is different than that.  Or actually that doesn't work so badly as a partial description to start, but there is more to it, so maybe the unconventional part is that complexity.  Something like a trace of smoke comes across, nothing like the smoky-smoke in lapsang souchong, or the much stronger effect in some sheng pu'er, just a trace, one that flashes past in the first part of a second in tasting.  After that other aspects fill out the range.  I'll need another infusion round to describe those further.


The silver tea (what I'll call the buds and leaves style one, for lack of a better name) is not completely unrelated in final effect as that first buds-only tea, also in that similar white tea range, a bit of hay, bordering on sunflower seed, with some floral.  But other aspects range that makes both teas complex is quite different.  Different how, that's the harder part.  The floral range could be different, and I'd not be able to pick that up, because it's a bit light and secondary in both.  One might wonder:  are these teas related, from the same producer?  Hard to say, but they aren't really unrelated in character, and the variation could be coming from the input of the leaves, using different material.  If it works out I'll do a follow-up post on more background from the provider.

The silver tea has a touch of complexity that comes across as savory.  That's an odd description, since it might mean a lot to someone that already knows what I mean, but not others.  It's not exactly like umami in Japanese green tea, but along that line.  In this case it's more like sundried tomato than seaweed, as a savory element resembles in those teas.

Of course umami is the name for an actual taste-receptor based taste aspect, not a flavor, which is instead picked up by the receptors in the nasal passages.  Umami is identified by the tongue, along with sweetness, bitterness, and sourness.  I can't be sure how my body--through various receptors-- is processing this aspect and effect in this case; but with more training and experience I probably could.  Based on having an unusual mouth feel maybe this is tongue related, an actual taste versus flavor.  I won't do more tangent here on tasting but I will mention a great lead for that, the "Taste What You're Missing" video by Barb Stuckey on Youtube.


So the silver tip is brighter, complex, with some earthiness in addition to that light, wispy hay and floral range.  The other silver tea feels completely different, with more depth of range, not so much brightness, and complexity that's not so simple to describe.  I went longer on the next infusion; that might help.

silver tea left, silver tips right

The silver needle tea picks up plenty more complexity.  Floral range elevates, and the feel thickens, that light earth range (hay, sunflower seed) is still present but it doesn't stand forward as much as the other aspects do.  This is a pretty interesting silver needle style tea; lots going on, nothing like those where you struggle to pick out finer, wispy aspects and have to settle for appreciating the feel of the tea.  Or brew it strong to get it to taste like anything, but even then some can still be a bit neutral when prepared that way.  Sometimes subtlety works out well, in can lead to interesting effects, but that's a different story.

The sundried tomato element is nice when prepared stronger, sweet, complex, well-integrated with the rest of the range.  That aspect could be interpreted in different ways, maybe as similar to the jack-o-lantern type of pumpkin (pumpkin types here are different, more like people tend to think of squash, although pumpkin is a squash, per my understanding).  The hint of smoke is still only present in the initial taste, flashing across your palate in part of a second, then it's gone.  That's quite different from the smoke effect in some sheng pu'er, which remains, maybe more on the aftertaste than actual taste, or at least both.


The other white (silver) is also a lot more intense, kind of a given, since it is brewed stronger.  With some white teas aspects can stay vague and subtle even as intensity ramps up; they mostly just thicken, and go from light hay to heavier hay.  There's nothing vague or subtle about this tea.  Floral is also elevated, a similar range floral, which I'm not able to tie to a particular flower, or really even to express much range.  It's sweet and rich but light, the kind of scent one might pick up in a wildflower meadow, I guess.  A bit of earthiness and mineral range fills in a context, most pronounced as a subdued mineral base (like rocks--again I'll struggle with saying which rocks).  The main difference in the teas is that stronger floral replacing all of the savory range in the other tea, and there being more mineral range.

There's a touch of earthiness in the buds and leaves version that could either be interpreted as interesting, positive complexity or as not being quite as clean in effect as the other tea.  It seems a subjective call if it's positive or not, but to me it's clearly pleasant and enjoyable.  It's a bit vague to describe easily, related to that stronger mineral range, but towards a woodiness, even though those are really different flavors scope (underlying earth and mineral ranges seem to somehow tie together, to express some related continuity, in this example).  I think if this silver tip tea was more subtle, if there was less to it, I'd really like this buds and leaves version better, but as it is both offer plenty of complexity, and both are positive and interesting in character.

Another round of tasting could draw out a few more adjectives, and it might be clearer what I mean by these descriptions.  I'm off to a swimming class soon so I'll need to rush this (my son's; I can swim just fine, although I'd stand out on a swim team for having bad form).  I'll make a couple more comments about transition on a light infusion and close this.

they swim; he's part of that splashing at the back

That savory element picks up in the silver tip tea.  What I mean might not be clear; it's a light, sweet, subtle, balanced white tea, with very clean flavors, nothing like a broth made from sundried tomatoes.  I emphasize that element because it's unusual, and gives the tea a great positive complexity.  Floral stands out the most, beyond that a light earthiness that could be hay or light wood, then below that the sundried tomato range.  It's moving more to a light cooked sweet potato range in this infusion, transitioning, still not much like similar sweet-potato and yam taste range in Chinese black teas, but a little similar.

The buds and fine leaves tea is still plenty complex, still showing floral and light earth range too, with more mineral aspects grounding all that.  To me it's clean in effect, and well balanced, and works really well.  It's not as "bright" in effect as the buds only version, but the extra range is nice in a different way.  That trace of mineral depth reminds me a little of drinking an aged (storage-abused?) white tea from a shop in NYC, a tea well darkened by poor large-jar storage conditions and aging.  Of course it's only a hint of that range, a faint tie-in, and I actually don't mind the way that other vastly inferior tea comes across.

"silver," buds and leaves version

I never reviewed that tea, so I'll say a little more about it here, since it makes for an interesting tangent.  A friend commented that adding a review in a review makes for something like a Russian doll effect, related to doing that in a Laos tea review, talking about making masala chai.  If it were clearer what that white tea was I might have reviewed it; a tea from the New Kam Man shop in Chinatown, labeled only as white tea, as far as I recall.  It included some buds and well-broken leaves.  It was probably from China, but who knows.

The main question related to that tea, beyond type, is how long it had been in that jar to darken as it had, and how many times that jar had been opened, details I would never have learned even if I'd asked.  It was interesting for how the white tea scope flavors had evolved, although of course I didn't know the starting point, what it had been like fresh, so there was some guesswork to that part.  The short version:  mineral tones ramped up, a lot.  The tea tasted a lot like a limestone / flint range, much as I could identify that.  It wasn't really "good," in the ordinary sense, but it was interesting, and complex, and not bad, so in a limited sense all that is good.

silver tips versions; relatively large buds

To summarize about these two teas:  they're nice.  They are not exactly like any other white teas I've tried, even different in character from other Nepal whites, to the extent I remember those.  They work well with my preference for not being nearly as subtle as lots of white teas I've tried from lots of places.  I guess that could be seen as a flaw related to other preference, for someone looking for subtlety, specific aspects range, and balance of factors other than flavors in white teas.


I haven't talked much about texture because the teas didn't seem particularly thick or thin to me, in the middle.  It would still be possible to comment on how they feel anyway, related to impact to different parts of the mouth, but I didn't go there. I typically prefer straightforward teas where so much is going on with flavors range that the feel aspects can be largely set aside as an interesting complimentary component, and these teas worked out like that.  For being no-name teas I found these both to be very impressive, on par with white teas from lots of other places and from different types of sources.  Per my preferences they were better than most white teas I've tried, maybe even as good as any others.