White tea is kind of wild western to most people, it has very special charming characters that waiting for discovery. It’s an easy tea to brew, no worries of bitterness no matter what temperature or steeping time applied, also it sounds easy to produce too, just two steps, Withering and Drying. Actually it’s an dangerous tea, simple is not easy for all. Hopefully this Learn White Tea The Hard Way can get your White tea journey go smoothly.
Table of Content
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
The first thing you learn White tea is about the definition, as White tea is kind of little brother in the market, not so many products, not so much information available. There is a national standard of White tea in China numbered GB/T 22291-2017, many questions can be answered there.
The interesting part actually is about the drafting units of this standard, it reveals how and where this paper comes except the what. There are ten units:
Above ten units can be classified into three groups:
All private tea companies comes from Fujian province, even the national institutions number 4 and the university, it mostly defines the standard, Fujian is the center of White tea, or specifically Fuding city is the heart of China White tea.
In the act GB/T 22291-2017, there is a clear word about what’s White tea.
White tea is made with the buds, leaves or young stems of Camellia Sinensis and go through Withering, Drying and Refining.
The most important part of this craft is Withering or long time withering, here we do not use the word Fermenting though it’s slightly fermented. Fermenting in Black tea needs high temperature along with high humidity, so it can violently turn into red color in 3-5 hours. Contrarily White tea takes over 48-72 hours , it’s a much longer shot, that’s where the descriptive word delicate comes.
There are four types of White tea:
The words used for color description including Silver, Gray, White and Green, even Black is used for Long Brow, but White is the most frequently used word. So if you want, you can arbitrarily say White tea is White.
Step into a tea shop or open your browser with friends, point out the teas claimed name of White tea but actually they are not. Discussing the reasons behind your idea, dig where and how the teas were produced hence help to improve the brewing skill.
Once upon a time there was a Queen ruled the world, she was a calligrapher, a landscape painter, a musician and also good at archery and riding, in the bone she is an artist. She founded the National Painting Academy which turned out many outstanding painters like Wang Ximeng, Zhang Zeduan, also she wrote a famous tea book, in her book she pointed out White tea is an unique existence that differ from the ordinary.
白茶自為一種,與常茶不同。其條敷闡,其葉瑩薄。崖林之間,偶然生出,雖非人力所可致。有者不過四、五家,生者不過一、二株,所造止於二、三胯而已。芽英不多,尤難蒸培,湯火一失,則已變而為常品。須製造精微,運度得宜,則表裏昭徹,如玉之在璞,它無與倫也。
There is only one thing she’s not good at, that is to say the politics. Her kingdom was defeated later, the Queen became a prisoner in a foreign country. One day when saw the autumn falling leaves, she drank a cup of her beloved tea and wrote down a very sad poetry. Upon hearing this, her enemy flew into a rage and killed her.
After death, her soul finally got free and transformed into her beloved white tea, people call it the Silver Needle.
Ancient Chinese divided the circle of the annual motion of the sun into 24 equal segments, each segment was called a Jie Qi or solar term. Every season contains six solar terms while the spring owns the followings:
Solar term Spring Equinox sits at about date March 20, it is one of the two times in the year when the sun is above the equator and day and night are of the equal length. From that day on, the heat above the ground starts to be more than underground, hence urge the tea begin to sprout. These early birds are the Silver Needle.
According to Act GB/T 22291-2017 Silver Needle is made with the buds of varietal Big White or Water Sprite that go through Withering, Drying and Refining. As it’s fully covered white hair, so received the full name White Hair Silver Needle. There are two grades available:
Both looks silver grey yet Super Grade has rich gloss also stout and strong. Traditionally this tea appreicate the tip aroma, it’s a special aroma of the good fluff creates. The most important difference between these two grades is the tip aroma, or called Hao Xiang 毫香.
The White tea has kind of short history that is about only two hundred years, in about 1857 varietal Fuding Big White was found and in about 1885 started to use its buds to make tea, then this craft was spreaded into Zhenghe county in 1889 but use local varietal Zhenghe Big White instead.
If you look Fuding from the sky, you will notice there is a lot of green color. It sits in the eat of Fujian province. Taimu Mountain, where has the White tea father plant, is a small island. Fuding tea mostly comes from the island and the inland, people even joke the White tea from the island has fishy smell. But we like the fishman right, just as love as Ernest Hemingway.
Once you walk into the heart of Fuding, there is one thing you will nerver overlook, that’s the bamboo forest, the essence of Chinese scholar culture. Do you know who is the most famous bamboo painter? It’s Zheng Banqiao who only painted two plants: The orchid, symbol of loyalty and the bamboo, symbol of never giving up. Anyway tea picked around this envirenment has fresh bamboo aroma. People use this plants to make bamboo tray, basket then to make tea, thus make the White tea refreshing and breathable.
Is Silver Needle bound to a specific region like Fuding? There are couple deeper questions depond on your answer, if your answer is:
Yesterday the peony saved me from the headache, just 9g of peony, 6g of cassia twig and 6g of licorice root that cost 0.3 bucks. (Don’t use it as there is deep theory of Chinese Medicine behind it.) To me it’s an angel. Actually the peony I used is Paeonia lactiflora or named Garden Peony. There is another peony, it’s Tree Peony or named Paeonia suffruticosa. They both share the same word peony, why is that?
There was a prince named Peony, he is the sole son of the king and big lover of wild plants. Peony always sneak out of the palace to the mountains and bring back many no-name flowers. One day he met his Ms. Right who is a daughter of tea farmer, they shared the same passion with the nature and curiosity of how the plants cure people. Sweet time flies and cut off by the call of the country. He never came back. The old King was devastated, calling his name and staring to the tree flower Peony brought back.
After receiving the bad news, the girl moved to the Taimu Mountain, continued the plants work and screened out the one for tea. One time the village was hit by the measles epidemic, she saved many people by his tea. The villagers were grateful to this White family girl thus call her Taimu Niang Niang respectively and named this gracious tea as White Peony.
There is a definition in Act GB/T 22291-2017, it clearly tell what is White Peony:
Bai Mu Dan is made with one bud along with one or two leaves that picked from varietal Big White or Water Sprite and go through Withering, Drying and Refining.
Beside the specific White tea processing craft, two points should be noticed:
Picking standard is easy to understand, what may get you lost is the cultivar used, as there are many plants share the same name.
All six are meant for White Peony but the one below is another story.
Phenix Water Sprite derives from Phoenix Mountain where has a very famous Oolong tea named Phoenix Dan Cong, this cultivar is totally different from the other one. Traditionally it’s not endorsed for White tea. However this cultivar got my interest for its exaggerated aroma, some experiments are in the progress, hopefully receive some surprises.
Purity is the nature of White tea that derived from simplicity of the craft which contains only Withering as its core technology. This rule broke down in 1968, a new technology combined with Black tea craft was invented. In order to get stronger taste, Rolling and Fermenting these two Black tea weapons are deployed, the new technology is named as New Craft White tea or Hong Kong White tea.
Hong Kong White tea is a story of Muse. In 1964 The Fujian Tea Company received feedback letter from Hong Kong, in this letter it pointed out the new tea should have good body, nice tip but not broken leaf, also the tea water could be yellow or bit of red, it doesn’t matter but White tea flavor is a must have.
Mr. Liu Dianqiu who was the leader of this new project, announced the success in 1968. The shortcoming is it loses the Aging character. Normally White tea has the abillity of fighting with time, as time goes by, the aroma and taste could have charming change, as well as stronger medicine effect. Now all these functions are greatly reduced.
It is not a pure White tea anymore, but who don’t like rebellion and courage, that’s one of the greatest the driving force. I improved this technology and created the tea Michelangelo.
This could be a little challenge that needs you to think not just fishing a specific knowledge, also this might need you to search and try it with your hands dirty. In the end you will find the Why behind What, then the barrier between different tea types will fall down and show you a bigger world.
Given two White Peony come from the same tea garden but different season, choose the right brewing method for each of them.
Spring White Peony: Picked at April 1, temperature is around 20°C while humidity is around 70% day time in house, the 2nd day has unexpected raining which is common in the spring. This raining has big influence on Withering, that is to say the Withering is not well done but as more and more fresh leaves needs to make, there is no time left for this batch, so Drying is implemented in the afternoon of 3rd day. The final product has a bit of grassy smell and astringency.
Summer White Peony: Picked at June 5. Normally the sprouts needs about 40 days but it’s Summer already, the time is decreaed to 32 days due to the heat. Daytime temperature is about 35°C, no bothering with rain, the Withering goes quite fast, it takes only 48 hours before Drying. The final product has not much grassy smell and no astringency at all.
So here come by two brewing instructions, pick one for each above tea.
Bonus Punch: Given two temperature options for water, 80°C and 100°C, what will you do?
If you ask what is Gong Brow White tea? Probably very few people can answer it, because it is a missing mythology. The Greek has god of sun Apollo, here in the North of Fujian they have Gong.
Gong is a handsom youngster also a good leader. One day he had a dream when he took a nap under the tree, in the dream an elderly man told him he is the sun and have served the planet for very long time, now he is going to die and need someone to take over his job. Gong refused as he still have his families and love. As time goes by, villagers found their flowers bloom no more, also birds stop singing, a lot of people get sick without reason, finally they found the sun is weaker and weaker. Gong told people about his dream. Everyone is frightened by the doosday. That night Gong told the old sun he want the job, then his body burst out a dazzling light, everyone saw his slowly rising into the air. They saw the sun again, still this place is named Sun Sight “Jian Yang”.
Sun Sight is located in the North of Fujian Province, neighbor of Wuyi Shan. Still most of White tea here are sexual plants, comparing to asexual plants, they have stronger roots, versatile characters and longer life. You can expect slightly different cupping experience every time, but this needs your concentration or you will miss it, because it’s not made up of big warriors but common free spirits. In other words, its taste is lighter and more delicate, you will not forget its refreshing sweetness.
Except for Gong Brow, Sun Sight also has another White tea named Shui Xian White tea, it’s a asexual varietal and has oppositely heavy tasting.
In Chinese Pinyin Mei = Brow, according to the Act 22291-2017, Gong Brow is defined as below:
Gong Brow is a White tea that has young shoots picked from sexual varietals yet go through processing steps like Withering, Drying and refining.
According to this definition, geography is not what it concers that doesn’t matter where it comes from, it could come from Yunnan, Fuding or anywhere. In the real world, I never heard Yunnan people call their White tea as Gong Brow, even the important White tea production area Fuding got another name for their sexual planted White tea. Gong Brow is an exclusive honor of Sun Sight.
It’s kind of paradise, the lights suddenly break into your eyes after long time hiking in the deep dark and dense forest. An open fields just shows up that looks like miracle, and the Gong Brow is there breathing the air freely. There is no other way to get here, any vehicles need to stop in front of the forest and pay around three hours walk to get through the darkness. There are many traces of big animals that you need to be careful and some may stair at you from afar. Besides the sounds that different creaturs plays is totally a music feast, you will forget the time.
This place is named Zhang Dun. People uses traditional way to reproduce the plant and tea making. Many old houses still stands here, many stories are waiting for listeners.
Some backgrounds in advance. This may surprise you, as there are so many varietals named Big White:
Big means there are bigger than local sexual varietal except Jinggu Big White as it is sexual varietal, other than that it is true.
White means it’s covered with white hairs especially the bud. There are also many varietals named as White Hair that also good for White tea making such as Lingyun White Hair and Renhua White Hair etc.
Only Jinggu belongs to Yunnan province, the others all belong to Fujian Province, can you figure out why Fujian is so famous for White tea? It’s also famous for Oolong tea, Black tea too. When you have the answer, you will notice how precious of Gong Brow.
In the movie of Rudderless, young artist Quentin wanna has an easy opening with Sam, whom he admires.
I’ve heard the donuts in here are better than sex. – Quentin You’re doing it wrong, then. – Sam
According to Act GB/T22291-2017, Shou Mei is a White tea that made up of young shoots or leaves picked from sexual varietal, Big White or Shui Xian yet go through processing as Withering, Drying and Refining.
In short, it could have no buds, just young shoots or leaves. In another word, lower grade material. But is that true? Is Shou Brow lower grade?
Normally Shou Brow is much cheaper than Silver Needle or White Peony, however it becomes many people’s favorite tea. Hands up, yes if you are one of them, you know what I am gonna talk.
Shou Brow could be mellow and thick tasty, even brew with steaming or boiling for hours, it’s an easy everyday drink.
Do you ever think why so “low grade” could have so sexy taste?
One golden rule for Oolong picking is proper maturity, this is the secret of why Oolong tea could have the most powerful aroma. This rule works too on Shou Brow.
Older leaf could not produce high aroma automatically, that’s the reason Green tea has plain taste if the leaf is old as it go straight forward to processing step Killing Green which kills any posting possibilities.
So here comes the show, fermenting, on the basis of leaf maturity.
White tea has fermenting?! Surprise?!
This part is not unveiled in the definition of Act GB/T22291-2017, actually it should not happen. As this kind of Shou Brow not just follow the traditional White tea craft but also breaks the rule of one key processing step of Withering only. At this point some may shout, isn’t this kind of jumping out of routine get life sexy?
Fermenting, that’s the reason most of Shou Brow looks dark.
Speaking of fermenting in White tea, do you think Silver Needle has fermenting? Next question is going to be wild, how to ferment Gong Brow? Something like black tea? or Oolong?
Most teas should be consumed as fresh as possible, some are better to wait a little bit. Then which is what? It’s kind of messy as there are so many teas. According to the agingbility, it can be classifed into three groups:
Dark tea includes Yunnan Puer tea, Anhua Hei tea, Hubei Qing brick, Sichuan Bian tea, Guangxi Liu Bao. Dark tea aging is somewhat familir to somebody, but age White tea?
My good friend Mr. Soup gave me a cake of White tea in 2016, that’s the time her daughter turned one years old. In China, one years old is the first formal celebrating moment, the birth is too busy for everyone. He plans to open a cake of this tea whenever his baby has something special like turn into 16 or graduate from kindergarten or high school.
Although I have many teas, this gift Mr. Soup gave me is kind of special, it’s a bind to two families. Sometimes we will cup this tea together, surprisingly realised how fast the time fly and how amazing the tea changed.
In Beijing Maliandao, Funing Chun Tea has been focus on aged tea for over 20 years, co-owner Lin Xue Yun found more people have interest of aging new tea by themselves, “a girl and her boy friend just came yesterday and wanna order some White tea gifts for the wedding guests. Though we have many years aged already White tea, they preferred to new tea as it’s much cheaper and more valueable to go through the whole aging process.” Ms. Lin carries many aged teas like Yunnan Puer, Guangxi Liu Bao etc, but White tea receives more and more interest, “Maybe it’s easier to see the changes and White tea has no bitterness counts too.”
Let tea grow with the marriage is the idea of Joshua and Cathy, they plan to age a case of White tea for their marriage next year. “As we both are older, the tea will grow older too. When we have golden wedding celebration, the tea will have 50th celebration as well, it could be a good company, a testimony of our love.”
There is a saying about White tea, “Year one is tea, three is medicine yet seven becomes a treasure.” This reveals two secrets:
The most interesting part is the changes time created, as times goes by, the flavor jumps from one to another, the aroma could be flowery, honey, dried plums or glutinous rice, lotus, jujube or wooden medicine. One year could make small change while three years can make big change.
When the green color decreased the liquor will go through organce then darker too.
When somebody ask me something about tea, I always compare it with we human people. It has life, can breath. The best temperature for White tea making is 20-25°C which we feel comfortable too. The freshly production finished White tea is like a teen, it will grow and get mature, more importantly more wisdoms received, more stories to tell.
These stories have science too. The content of catechins were decreased even only little existed in 20 years aged White tea and, oppositely flavonoids has significant increase. This flavonoids is the key element of health function.
A research conducted by Liu Lin Yan revealed the secret of flavor change. Linalool, linalool oxide, geranoiol, methyl salicylate, phenylethyl alcohol, nerolidol, gerania is reduced in the aged White tea while gedrol, dihydroactinolide, naphthalene, 2-methyl-gedrene, beta-gedrene are increased. These aromatic components play a big show here.
Aged White tea especially Silver Needle has been there for over hundred years, most tea farmers also have a tradition of storing tea but this is limited in Fuding area. White tea was almost ignored in China before 2006, the turn happened from deputy secreary of Fuding, Chen Xing Hua, who took over the job of tea industry development.
Chen says, “I didn’t drink tea before 2006, my relationship with tea has gone through three stages: first stage, I couldn’t sleep after tea drinking then better can fall asleep in the second stage. In the third stage, I have problem with sleeping again if don’t drink some tea.”
The historical moment of White tea attracted eyes was in 2007 the Strait Tea Expo, an airship with banner suddenly showed up in the air, everyone surprised to see the White tea character on the banner. After that it got more and more attention, White tea could be aging slowly accepted.
Still people didn’t know how to press the White tea until 2011 master Fang Shou Long received his patent about White tea compressing. After that this pressing equipment was widely spreaded.
So be cautious if one tea is older than 2007 or a cake claimed to be produced before 2011.
Unlike wine, the vast majority of White teas could be aged instead of drunk right away. The price and grade doesn’t matter. For wine aging you might receive suggestion to forget bottle under $20. That is not the case with White tea, even a $10/kg could be aged well, it’s very fair tea.
So you can count on all White tea types for aging, no matter Silver Needle, White Peony, Gong Brow or Shou Brow, they are all doing well.
Then does the birth make difference? I mean the place of production. Tea varies from one place to another because of the different terrior. It does make difference, different origin has different character that leads different aroma after aging, but they all can be well aged and have their own characters.
The real matter about could or could not is the processing craft. If a tea is stacked and highly fermented, then it will create very soft tasting immediately but also lose the future oxidization possibility. These high fermented White teas has a clear feature, the color is dark. I adore White tea in this style, there is always a place and time for it. These tea of haste could have some changes in three years and they are not just suitable for brewing, a cook could make a remarkable experience.
Sadly there is not much choice outside China. In US most White teas are made in three years. Aging could add the values a lot but it’s also could be a burden for vendors until the public can see the value. Still there are some websites you could take a try:
If you are looking to spend $100,000 for a customed, tempeture and humidity controlled aging box, this is not for you however, you should know your wooden house worths more than $100,000 in speaking of WHite tea aging. There a simple rule you should know:
Constant is your friend for tea aging however, reasonable changes is a better friend.
Variable temperature can create more personlised tea as long as not exceed 50°C. So you could put it in the basement, that’s fine, but you would need a dehumidifier to let it under 80%.
Combining Whole Case with Aging Room could burst the strongest energy.