Drinking the first sips of the new year means that it’s time to reflect on the teas I drank last year. That’s why I made a list of the best teas of 2019. I tried a wide variety of different teas of different types, countries and shops and it was quite difficult to come up with three teas that stood out from the rest. After thinking about it for a while (and even more overthinking), I finally came up with three teas that I enjoyed the most. These teas are: Mei Leaf’s Silver Needle, Nio Teas’ Yakushima Sencha and Tea Encounter’s 2003 Yuanjiutang Ban Zhang (in no particular order).
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Mei Leaf’s Silver Needle
The first tea on my list is a Mei Leaf Silver Needle from 2017. I had this tea back in March and it was a pleasant experience because it was smooth and subtle. It reminded me a bit of a summer meadow with some sweet notes as well. It wasn’t as fresh and intense as a fresh silver needle, but the flavours were deeper and more complex. If you want to read the full article, click on the picture!
Nio Teas’ Yakushima Sencha
I vividly remember the moment I had this tea. It was in the beginning of July and it was a very hot day. I didn’t have a lot of successful encounters with Japanese green tea, but I still went for this one. It proved to be the right choice as I was rewarded with a magical tea session. The tea was amazingly sweet and felt like the much needed breeze. It was a subtle sweetness that offered a delicious refreshment and this also was the first successful attempt of brewing a Japanese green tea.
Tea Encounter’s 2003 Yuanjiutang Ban Zhang
Another tea that I really enjoyed in 2019 was the 2003 Yuanjiutang Ban Zhang sheng puer tea from Tea Encounter. It was the first time I drank a sheng puer this old and was quite surprised. It started out with subtle woody notes but once the sweetness started coming, it just kept on going. The later infusions were almost like eating cotton candy. I experienced subtle but really sweet flavours and was a bit overwhelmed by what I tasted. It was also the first time I used my tetsubin to heat water, which added another dimension to the session.
Don’t know where to buy tea online in Europe? I made a list with over 80 online shops and I keep updating it regularly. You can check it over here.
Conclusion
With this post, I want to celebrate my first year as a teablogger. What better way to celebrate this than to create my own ‘best teas of 2019’ list. I’ve had a lot of different teas and I did not write posts about all of them (due to practical reasons). For this post, I only included teas that I mentioned on my blog. The main reason I started this blog was to document my adventures in the world of loose leaf tea but still, it’s quite impossible to write detailed articles about all the teas I drink. All in all, I’m quite happy with how things went last year and I hope I will keep improving my skills and keep discovering delicious teas.
The teas I mentioned in this article are in no particular order. These are the ones I enjoyed the most, each unique in its own way. I tried to pick 3 teas that are different because I don’t want to limit myself to 1 or 2 specific type(s). If you want to know more about these teas, click the thumbnail and you will be redirected to the article. Have fun reading about my best teas of 2019 and happy new year!
If you want to visit the stores where you can buy these teas, click the following links:
Silver Needle: the 2017 silver needle is not available anymore but they offer a variety of other silver needle teas (link).
