Today’s review is a shou cake from Whispering Pines Tea Co – 2012 Huron Gold Needle.
I purchased this cake, along with the 2013 Ontario Shou, when they were just released in cake form. I had sampled both from tea community Travelling Tea Boxes and thought they were pretty tasty, inexpensive, and worth having a cake on hand.
Interesting wrapper on this cake!
Dry Leaf
Wow, this is a gorgeous cake, one of the best looking shous I’ve seen! Huron Gold Needle has beautiful ripples of gold throughout the warm brown tea.
Steeping Instructions
I used boiling filtered water to steep my shou puer. I did a 1 gram to 15ml ratio, gongfu style and 2 flash rinses before drinking.
First Infusion: Huron Gold Needle steeps up a light brown. The scent is of hot earth like a desert or at a nursery.
The flavor is brothy, rich, planky woody earth, with a touch of dry sweet. There is a slight dryness too.
Second, Third, and Fourth Infusion: Huron Gold Needle ramps up to dark, strong, very rich, thick coating style shou with a cream texture. It’s so thick, it’s like tool handle dip. The flavor is hot dirt, earth moss, and punchy dark. The finish has a mineral like sweetness and a twinge of floral aftertaste. This tea still tastes like a hardware store’s nursery section from the with hot dirt and strong notes.
Huron Gold Needle has the vibe of out of stock Mandala Tea’s Special Dark due to intensity. However, Huron Gold Needle isn’t as sweet and is more dry and earthy.
Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Infusion: The pu’er is sweetening up but has bit of spice going on. Mineral element is strong with the stick to your ribs earth flavor is slipping each sip. Bitter sweet notes as well.
Eighth and Ninth Infusion: Now in soft sweet cuddly mode! The tea colour has shifted to an amber gold tone.
Huron Gold is now mineral sweet and creamy heavy texture, like milk chocolate in a cup. It’s at the end but this is best steeping and interesting finish to this tea. The last steeping I did for like 30 minutes, as I got caught up laughing at beenghole pictures on instagram
Comments
2012 Huron Gold Needle Shou is a pu for the type who want a stick to your ribs rich potent pu’er. The trip to the finish is lovely, I loved the sweetness of the final steeps. A solid pu’er and low price commitment due to the 100g cake size. Since Whispering Pines Tea is a US seller, other fellow US tea drinkers can get this cake fast for quick satisfaction.
