Silver Needle

This is just a quick post because I have been trying to post at least twice a month and I only posted once this month! I at least still have several hours left to this month.

Silver Needle is a very pretty tea, I like the silvery look the dry leaves have. My little sister calls it green banana tea! It does not taste like green bananas though, only looks like them.
The taste is similar to the smell of dry autumn leaves,  though a little more subtle. It is also fruityish (I think I may have made that word up!) It has a nutty-toasty flavor as well, somewhat like toasted barley or oat. It is a very good tea is you are not wanting something too strong, yet something that still has plenty of flavor to it. Ever since I first tasted it, I thought it tasted similar to a lightly oxidized oolong. I know that that probably sounds funny, since white teas are oxidized very little, and oolongs are usually oxidized more than green teas are. I think the best word to describe the smell is the word autumn, though autumn may smell different to every person. So that is just about "it" for this post!

Tung Ting Oolong

I finally got this poem done! I had been starting and re-starting it for quite awhile, but never really got beyond the first line. I decided to try starting it a totally different way. I started it as brewing the tea, not starting it as what the tea tastes like. Here it is (finally, and it is still not perfect) I hope you enjoy it!

I set the leaves to steep,

hot water I then pour over

drowning in the water deep,

they unfurl so beautifully.

Then I smell my finished tea,

lakes and streams and grass

the aroma drifts so wonderfully

though 'tis still to hot for me to sip.

But it then cools off, it seems!

So a careful little sip I take,

but then I quickly cough,

twas still too hot for me.

When the second sip I take,

I take it very cautiously

though the flavors dance 

across and around my tongue.

As I take the next sip over,

the first thing that I taste,

is barley grass and clover

call it vegetal otherwise.

In the next sip that I take

a new flavor is distinct

it is not grass, and is not lake,

it's the bitter almond that I taste!

The next tasty thing,

is honey; dark, dark, honey

though the sweet does not take wing,

I only taste the so-dark flavor.

Have I said enough yet,

of this so-good tea?

If I haven't, do not fret

try it without me!

Or with me, if you want to! What do you think of this poem? Do you think that starting at the brewing and burning your tongue before you really get to taste it a good way to start the poem? The burning your tongue part of the poem happens way too often to me!