Super-fine King pickings from Fuding, authentiaclly produced under the sun and charcoal-baked before being aged for 7 years. Semolina pudding, iced buns, nougat and vanilla custards. A luxuriously sweet White Tea experience that comes from top quality tea allowed to age cool and dry conditions.
I sampled this tea many years ago and it instantly shone out as a supreme White Peony (possibly King Peony).
All of the hallmarks of a great Bai Mu Dan (or Yin Zhen) were there. It had a warm sweetness and oily mouthfeel that only comes from prime pickings produced in the traditional way - under the sun.
If you watch our video visiting Fuding you will see that this old-school way of making White Tea is disappearing in favour of conveyor belt control of all of the parameters. But there is no question that this much more skilled and unpredictable way of withering and drying the tea under the sun produces a far superior tea with much more warmth and aromatic variety.
This batch of White Peony was produced with that extra step of low temperature charcoal baking to finish the tea which adds new layers of warmth and depth and makes it perfect for ageing.
So this tea was ready to go in 2018 as a top-shelf White Peony.
But we decided to age it.
When I tasted the tea I was in the middle of White tea ageing experimentation and so we thought that we could use this batch to help us to learn.
While most White tea ageing calls for humidity and warmth in order to speed up the fermentation and oxidation reactions, we wondered how slow ageing in a cool, dry and airtight environment may alter the effects of ageing on the taste.
So this batch of tea has been sitting since 2018 in conditions normally reserved for trying to keep a tea 'fresh'. The tea has been cold-stored, relatively air-tight and dry.
The results of this 7 years of slumber are wildly different to the fruity and honeyed notes which develop with warm and humid ageing.
Instead, this style of cold and dry ageing has turned up the richness and smoothness of the original flavours and textures of the tea.
Rather than shifting the flavour profile dramatically, the cold ageing has softened the raw notes and intensified the sweet and syrupy yumminess of the fresh tea to such a point that it starts to taste like pudding.
In essence, the ageing has taken an already top-shelf White Peony and elevated its luxury to be way above its price point and into Heirloom Siver Needle territory.
Soft and oily liquor blossoms in the mouth with intense birch and agave syrup sweetness and a glorious vanilla pudding indulgence. There are candied nuts and almond croissants, iced buns, mille-feuille sandwiching thick creme patisserie and the light freshness of aloe and herbal candies.
2018 Peony Pudding is proof that slow, cool and dry ageing will enhance, elevate and enrichen the original taste of a tea. It was already a special tea but now it is the best White Peony King I have ever tasted - the delicious reward of having patience!
If you buy a pouch or two then you may wish to store some of this tea in similar cool (less than 20 degrees celsius), dry (less than 55% humidity) and airtight conditions. This will continue this style of ageing. Alternatively you can now let it age in your natural environmental conditions or push the tea towards more changing flavours with humidity above 60%.
