Silver Needle Tea Seminar and Virtual Tea Seminar Review

Silver Needle Tea virtual seminar spread.

I drew this spread as part of Liz Steel‘s Sketching Now Sketchbook Design course, and it records my experiences from the final virtual tea seminar session that I had with Juyan from The Chinese Tea Company. I took all of the seminars that she offers, and I can see that she’s running a few of them again later this month and next month. I highly, highly recommend them (I’m not affiliated or paid to say this in any way, I’m just a happy longtime customer of her wonderful shop). Whether you are just starting out in Chinese tea or you’re well versed in Gong fu tea brewing, you’ll learn a lot about tea and tea tasting in her seminars, and have a lot of fun along the way. You get four tea samples that you drink while your in the seminar (and there’s enough left over for another brewing post seminar too), Juyan gives a presentation about the tea, the grower and the growing region, as well as tips on how to assess the leaves, brew them and taste them. The seminars are small and intimate, and are a wonderful way to spend an evening. If you’re starting out the Fundamentals of Oolongs and Green Tea Exploration (currently sold out) are phenomenal, the Wu Yi Rock tea seminar is a must – a gateway into understanding a complicated and elusive tea (as is the Phoenix Oolong seminar, if she gives it again). The Puer tea masterclass (also sold out) is just that, and a great way to get familiar with an easily misunderstood class of teas, and the Silver Needle White Tea seminar will take you by surprise. Until this seminar I thought that white tea in general and Silver Needle in particular is boring, but it’s anything but that.

Quick Gongfu Tea Session

I didn’t feel like breaking the tea table out for a gongfu session with all the fixings, but I really felt like some Shu pu’er, so I improvised a quick tea setting. This is my Shu Yixing teapot. I have two more teapots that I’m now prepping to be my Oolong and Sheng teapots, to replace the lower quality teapots that I’ve used so far.

The tea is from the Chinese Tea Company in Portobello road, London and it’s fabulous, like all the teas that I get from there.

Drinking Puer for #nationalteaday

I’m not a cooked (Shu) Puer person normally, but this aged cake that I got from the Chinese Tea Company in London is a joy to drink.

My gongfu setup waiting for the water to boil:

My very happy tea pet:

The brew – dark and delicious.

Tealog: Yunnan Bi Luo Chun

A chocolaty black tea from Yunnan Sourcing that’s worth trying out, naturally sweet and malty. The half rolled leaves look like tiny golden snails, but don’t let that put you off them.