What is White Tea?

You’ve heard of green tea. You’ve heard of black tea, but have you heard of white tea? This rare tea is a completely separate type, and in this blog we’re going to learn all about it. We’ll explore how this tea is picked and processed, and how it compares to green tea in terms of flavor, health benefits, and brewing. We’ll get into the specifics of this unique tea later on in the blog, but to start things off, why is it called white tea? Green tea makes sense because the leaves retain their green color and black teas also called red teas in China produce a dark reddish color in the cup. But where does white tea come in? It actually gets its name from these fine white butts that appear in certain white teas. This is actually not the defining characteristic of a white tea we’ll get into that later. These little hairs are called tricombs, and they protect the young buds from prying insects. But not all white teas include these white buds. In fact, white Teas are split into four major categories. Unlike other teas, they’re named after how they’re picked. The highest grade of white tea is Silver Needle or Bai how Yin. This is made entirely of these tiny white buds and it’s become the most iconic white tea. These silvery buds will command the highest price, produce the lightest flavor, and contain the highest caffeine content. This most refined of white teas is subtly sweet with distinct notes of honeydew, melon, fresh cucumber and white grape. It’s primarily produced in the Fujian province of China and genuine versions are made from the Dubai or Large White Cultivar. Baimudan or white pey is the next most refined type of white tea made from a bud and two leaves. It’s important to mention that although this tends to be less expensive than silver needle, it’s not necessarily worse in terms of flavor. The addition of the leaves adds more depth and body to the tea, which some tea drinkers prefer to the lighter tasting notes of a baihau yinhen. The flavor has a warm honey-like sweetness with fruity notes of melon or peach. Like bai hao yinhen, it’s primarily produced in Fujja Province, specifically in counties like funding, which we’ll discuss later. So we have white teas made from just a bud and white teas made using a bud in younger leaves. But what about the older leaves? These will be used to make a white tea called showe or longevity eyebrow. This is almost like the banca of white teas made from more mature leaves and later harvests. It’s much more affordable, so it can be drunk as an everyday tea, just like banca. Older leaves contain less caffeine and more minerals, which makes teas like this a good choice for the afternoon or evening. Banca is a green tea so the flavors are more light and citrus, while Shoume has an earthy or herbaceous flavor to it. But there’s actually a 4th type of white tea you probably didn’t know about called Gongme. Gongme or tribute eyebrow is a mix between Baimudan and Shoe, so it contains some older leaves but also a few younger leaves and buds. It can have notes of fruit, honey and sometimes a woody or creamy undertone. Like the other white tease, it’s produced in Fujja Province, but it’s more traditionally made from the shaoaii or small white cuafar. Compared to the Dubai, the shaoaii has smaller, thinner leaves and offers a more robust flavor. Because Dubai has these elegant, larger leaves and a more refined flavor, it’s used for top white teas like Silver Needle and White Peony okay. So now that we have our picking, it’s time to learn how white teas are processed. But before we get into that, if you’re enjoying this blog so far, it would really mean a lot to us. If you could like and subscribe so you can see more T blogs in the future, we recently checked and 77 percent of you guys are not subscribed, which is really too bad because we’re gonna be covering a new tea every week. Please make sure to sign up for notifications, so you don’t miss our next tea episode. So once these las are picked, they need to be processed in order to produce a finished white tea. This is the step that truly defines the white teas, not those buds that we mentioned earlier. The six categories of tea, white tea, yellow tea, green tea, ong tea, red tea, and dark tea all come from the same plant Camellia sinensis, and they are not categorized by how they are picked, but how they’re processed. By the way, if you want a full crash course on the six different types of Ts in detail, you can click this blog here, but white T is the least processed of all the major types. The leaves are essentially just dried, but it’s more complicated than that. The producer needs to slow the activity of enzymes like oxidase, which would otherwise oxidize the leaves and turn them into a black tea. But rather than applying intense heat as is used to make green teas, the enzymes are slowed by reducing the moisture content in the leaves. After drawing, the enzymatic activity becomes very slow, but subtle chemical changes continue over time, which is why white tea can age and develop deeper flavors, but we’ll get into that later. The producer needs to carefully monitor the heat and moisture content of the leaves. If the moisture content is too high, the tea will begin to oxidize. If the heat is too high it will cook the leaves and damage the delicate flavor compounds. Because the process is so simple there’s nowhere to hide, it really requires a tremendous amount of skill to determine when the tea is ready. The process begins with solar withering where the leaves are spread out and exposed to air and sunlight. This brings the moisture content of the fresh leaves down from 70 to 75 percent to 30 to 50 percent. The producer will then use a low controlled heat to bring the moisture content all the way down to four to seven percent. These drier leaves will infuse much better and they remain more stable for storage, but where is white. Primarily produced. Fuji is the most famous province for Chinese white tea and it still produces an overwhelming majority of this traditional style of white tea. In recent years. Yunnan has also been producing more white teas and leveraging the strong reputation and production capacity of this region. One of the most famous Una white teas is Moonlight White which is pressed into a cake like a poor. Moonlight white teas are made from large leafed Aamicka tea plants that grow in the region and tend to have notes of ripe stone fruit and a slightly thicker texture. But the cultural heart of Chinese white tea production is Fu Ding, a city in Fujja Province. Unlike black tea and green tea, white tea is much newer and records indicate that flooding is where the first modern white tea was made around 1700 and 96 using local tea plants that were moved from the nearby Ta Moon Mountains. This region benefits from a coastal mountain terrain, moderate temperatures, and frequent cloud cover. These factors slow the growth of tea plants and give them more time to develop flavor. This is where modern white tea cultivation likely started, but it soon moved to nearby Zng He. Jung He has almost as long of a history producing white tea, but the tea itself is not nearly as famous. The style of Jung He white processing tends to produce greener and more raw teas compared to fusing, but flooding. White tea has become even more popular lately with the discovery of aged white teas. As we mentioned before, the enzyme activity in white tea leaves hasn’t been stopped, it’s merely been slowed by the moisture reduction. This means that the teas can be aged over time, which leads to a maturation in flavors if carefully stored in a controlled environment. This causes the leaves to gradually darken while deeper, honeyed and woody notes develop. Over time the liquor shifts from pale and floral to ambercolored, thicker and smoother in texture with a subtle herbal sweetness. But in addition to the unique flavor, white teas have also become popular in recent years thanks to their health benefits. Because the leaves are minimally processed, they retain higher concentrations of antioxidants compared to black teas, which have their polyphenols converted during the oxidation process. Aged whites can also provide unique benefits when it comes to health. As whitetages, its natural plant compounds slowly change and combine into larger molecules that deepen the tease color and flavor. These compounds may help reduce inflammation in the body and support gut health by interacting with the beneficial bacteria in the digestive system. But when it comes to health benefits, green tea still reigns supreme. Not only does it retain higher levels of polyphenols, but it also has higher amounts of catkins compared to white teas. Catkins are an antioxidant inside the tea leaf and they’ve shown promising results with everything from weight loss to cold and flu prevention. Here, green tea has a strong advantage and it’s why it has a reputation for being such a healthy tea. Another interesting compound in tea is thein, an amino acid that’s believed to buffer a lot of the negative side effects of caffeine. This is why tea drinkers report having this long-lasting, calm, alert feeling that can help during long periods of work and study. This is a star contrast to coffee or energy drinks, which can create a short, jittery burst of energy followed by a crash later on in the day. While whites contain solid levels of threonine, they pale in comparison to the shaded Japanese green teas like gkurro and match with green teas. Oxidation is stopped quickly by applying heat, so the leaves are able to retain more of their thein content. In addition to this, the shading process greatly increases the amino acid content of the leaves, producing a smooth, sweet flavor and a calm, alert focus. This amino acid content is one of the things we look for when we source teas. After traveling around Japan for the past few years and sampling 100 of different types, we put together a collection of our favorites at Neos. Dot. Com. If you want to try some of the best pesticidefree Japanese green teas like Yokurro, we. Would really appreciate it if you could try a few and let us know what you think. But to take full advantage of the flavor and health benefits of White Tea, you need to prepare it properly. We’ll show you a step-by-step guide to Brew White, but if you want to follow our full guide, you can read the blog article on White at neot’s.com. There, we go way deeper into topics that we just don’t have time to cover in a single youtube blog anyways. How to Brew White depends on how many buds and young leaves are contained in the tea. The ideal water temperature for Baihao Yinhen and White Penny is between 100 and 85 Fahrenheit and 100 and 95 Fahrenheit. For 85 degrees Celsius and 90 degrees Celsius. The buds of the tea plant contain higher concentrations of amino acids, and when brewed properly, these bud heavy white teas express more of their sweet and delicate flavors. For showman tea, this range can be extended to 100 and 94 to 200 and 12 Fahrenheit, or 90 degrees Celsius to 100 degrees Celsius. These teas contain virtually no buds, and the more mature leaves can stand up to higher water temperatures. These teas are meant to express more of these bold, woody and earthy flavor profiles, which can be brought out with higher temperatures. The best vessel to use for brewing white tea is a porcelain Guiwan. The flavor of white tea is very subtle, so it needs a neutral, non-porous material that doesn’t impact the flavor of this delicate brew. Add four to six grams of leaves into your Guiwan and pour in 100 miters of hot water. It’s really important to weigh the tea leaves, particularly with white teas. The buds of Baihao Yinhen, for example, can be very light and fluffy. Show May on the other hand is not rolled so it takes up way more space than a typical green, black or oblong tea. You. May be surprised how much five grams of tea really is. It’s usually recommended to give the leaves a quick rinse with hot water, as this can remove the tea dust and also prepare the leaves for infusion. This is not recommended for delicate white teas like Baia Yin Jen, but for the more leafier varieties. After you give them a rinse, you can brew the leaves for 20 seconds and pour out the first infusion. These leaves can then be brewed eight or more times, just add five seconds to each steeping time. With each infusion, make a note at how the flavor evolves from brewing to brewing. So white tea is a rare yet well-lod tea that makes a great addition to your collection. If you brew it properly, you can get plenty of tasting notes that are hard to find in other tea types. If you would like to try some of the best teas we found in Japan, we would really appreciate it if you could visit our website Neos dot. Com and browse our selection. When you order tea from us, you’re not only helping to support this channel, but also helping us to support the dozens of talented farmers we work with. We. Have tons of new episodes coming up soon, so please make sure you’re subscribed. So you get the next T blog as soon as it comes out. Until then, we’ll see you next time.