Tea: Bamboo Needle Jasmine
Type: Hongqing Jasmine Green
Harvest: March, June 2024
Region: Emeishan, Sichuan
Producers: Emeng Tea - Little Yan's Garden
Tasting notes: Jasmine, Cream, Osmanthus, Vanilla
Bamboo Needle is the pinnacle of Sichuan Jasmine tea. It is beautiful with the down heavy early picked buds, its ornamental flowers, and perfect needle shape. The green tea used for this Jasmine Tea is the first pluck and entirely silvery buds. Often confused with white tea, this green tea is first produced very early in spring and is then sealed and stored in coolers for the Summer-blooming jasmine flowers to be ready for pairing.
Mixed artfully with jasmine flowers, the natural scenting process takes several days. First the green tea is spread out of clean muslin cloths and the freshly plucked jasmine flowers are laid right on top of the tea. In a temperature-controlled room with plenty of ventilation, the jasmine flowers naturally dry, imparting their fragrances to the green tea. These jasmine flowers are then discarded, as the historic precedent for jasmine tea is that one should charge only for the tea and not for the flowers. In the north of China, they like to drink their jasmine tea without any noticeable flowers, but the customers in the south (Guangzhou, Hongkong) prefer to see the flowers, so for the southern customers, the factory adds fresh dried jasmine flowers to their tea.
Naturally, the dominant fragrance in this tea is the jasmine flowers, which exude their aroma to all at the tea table every time the lid of the brewing vessel is lifted or the tea is poured. Beyond this is the body of the exquisite green tea, giving a milky, creamy flavor to the floral forward tea.
It is also still a jasmine tea. While not unpleasantly overpowering or sweet like some lower market jasmine teas, jasmine is the singular taste note that rings out throughout a glass of Bamboo Needle. Every once and a while, the clear crisp bud flavor steps out behind the curtain, without distracting from the floral bouquet that always lingers on the tongue.
The buds are tea is initially picked in March, before going to the fridge for three months until jasmine flowers are ready. The Jasmine flowers and green tea leaves are then stacked into trays and baked several times in special-purpose oven. The jasmine flowers used in this process actually blacken, and the cute little white flowers you'll see in your glass are added at the very end for purely ornamental value.
