White tea

báichá · 白茶

White tea is the least handled of all — leaf and bud withered in air and gently dried, with no fixing and no rolling. The result is pale, soft and sweet, and unusually it improves for years.

Oxidation · Barely oxidised — wither and dry, nothing more

If green tea is leaf stopped by fire, white tea is leaf simply let be. The young buds and leaves are laid out to wither — sometimes for days, in sun and shade — and then dried. There is no pan, no rolling, no shaping. The silvery down on the bud, the háo, stays intact, and the cup is gentle: melon, hay, a clean honey sweetness.

The classic whites come from Fuding and Zhenghe in Fujian. The grade ladder runs from all-bud Baihao Yinzhen (silver needle) down through bud-and-leaf Bai Mudan (white peony) to the leafier Shoumei.

The one that ages

Unusually for a barely-oxidised tea, good white tea rewards patience. Pressed into cakes and kept dry, it slowly deepens — the hay turning to dried apricot, dates and warmth. Collectors speak of it the way pu-erh people speak of their cakes.

Varieties in this class

White tea

Fuding and Zhenghe, Fujian

Baihao Yinzhen

báiháo yínzhēn · 白毫银针

Soft honey, melon and hay — delicate, sweet, with a cool clean finish and no edge at all.

Fuding and Zhenghe, Fujian — 600 m and up

Bai Mudan

báimǔdān · 白牡丹

Honey, hay and a soft floral note over a fuller body than silver needle — sweet, mellow and round, with a clean finish.

Yunnan — Pu'er and Lincang

Yueguang Bai

yuèguāng bái · 月光白

Honey, ripe stone fruit and a soft floral sweetness over a fuller body — rich for a white, with a long, mellow finish.