Aah White tea. In some ways White tea encapsulates what I love about tea - so simple and yet so complex.
Processing sounds ridiculously simple - pick leaves, put them out in the sun to dry (or air heaters if it's rainy) and voila you have White tea. But when a process is so simple there is no room for mistakes, no way to fix any shortcomings in extra layers of processing. Any errors will be easy to pick up to the trained palate. This is the Goldilocks of tea - a small aberration makes an obviously poorer quality tea - all conditions have to be 'just right'.
1. The buds (in the case of Silver Needle) have to be picked when they are at their fullest - pick too early and the buds have not developed, pick too late and the buds have begun to turn into leaves. Either way the tea will lose flavour.
2. The picking cannot be done on a wet or dewy day - the moisture makes it so much harder to dry in the right amount of time to ensure the right level of oxidation. So imagine the dilemma if the buds are in prime condition (see point 1) but the forecast is for 5 days of rain!
3. The withering/drying/oxidation has to be even, so this usually means spreading all the buds in a perfect thin layer (although this varies from producer to producer).
4. The outdoor ambient temperature and humidity during the wither has to be perfect otherwise the buds will dry too quickly (not oxidise enough) or too slowly (oxidise too much). It's very hard to make good White tea on a rainy day and in modern times, most White tea is made indoors using temperature controlled troughs but the results are never as good as getting the leaves under the sun!
5. The tea will continue to change after drying so it has to be stored perfectly away from excess humidity to stay young or you can choose to age in higher humidity.
There are 4 main “grades” of White Tea, although we believe that one isn’t necessarily “better” than the others; they all possess amazing and individual qualities that will suit different occasions, settings or tastes.
1. Silver Needle, or Yin Zhen in Pinyin, is the highest grade of White tea. The pickings are the silver, downy-haired buds only, creating a thick, meadowy-sweet liquor full of florals and cream.
2. Bai Mu Dan, or White Peony, is the next grading of White tea. White Peony is sometimes picked when the first Spring buds have opened and produced a couple of leaves – the resulting tea is called ‘White Peony King’. Since the popularity has risen for Silver Needle tea to have larger, fatter buds, most producers will usually pick the buds from the first-flush for making Silver Needle tea, and wait around 10-14 days for the second flush to pick for Bai Mu Dan– this should not be called White Peony King. White Peony offers all of the delicate and elegant sweetness that a Silver Needle delivers but with added herbaceous depth and texture.
3. Next is Gongmei, or “Tribute Eyebrow”, the name being linked to the thinner buds and leaves used compared to Bai Mu Dan and is usually picked in Autumn rather than Spring. The result is an even deeper sweetness and warmth, with less florals and more fruit coming through into the taste.
4. Shou Mei is the final grade of White tea, being produced from only the leaves and picked in the last Spring harvest. Deep, sweet and almost alcoholic notes of red fruits, dried herbs and leaves on the forest floor, with a notable body sensation in the form of muscle-relaxation but also mental stimulation that seems to develop and potentiate with ageing.
These are a few reasons why White tea is not as simple as it appears and I haven't even started talking about the ways to brew White tea. Don’t let the lightness of the tea fool you. Whites may appear to be very delicate but they are potent brews with poise and power. If you are interested, I have made a couple of masterclasses on how to Choose Silver Needle and How to Brew White Tea.
In 2019 we took the opportunity to film our exploration into White tea production in Fujian Province and explain how White tea is produced, the history of White tea and what it takes to find truly pinnacle White teas for our collection.
