Category Archives: White Tea

Saturday Morning Tea

Good morning, dear tea friends! I’m running off to take my granddaughter, Ella, to her dance class so today I leave you with a re-post from the very beginning of this year, when the icy winds were blowing outside and I was cozy inside enjoying a cup of white tea.

See you next week!

Happy New Year, dear friends! A brand new year always fills me up with feelings of hope and excitement for new adventures. So, let us sit down together and continue our adventures in tea, shall we?

This morning I’m enjoying a delicate white tea in my cup, from the Adam’s Peak estate in the Dimbula district on the island of Sri Lanka (Ceylon). A rare tea composed of the new tips of the tea bush. To preserve their unique style, this tea is entirely hand processed and dried in sunlight. I wrote about a previous lot of this tea here.

I steeped the tea in 160 degree F water for 4 minutes. Guidelines suggest 170 degree F water but I wanted to see what flavor would be revealed in the slightly cooler water.

As I lifted the infuser from my glass teapot, I caught the faint whiff of flowers from the wet leaf.

The wet leaf reminds me of small swords, probably the influence of my rapt immersion in the world of the Seven Kingdoms lately. If you haven’t read George R.R. Martin’s tale of the Game of Thrones, I highly recommend it.

More swords…but I digress from our talk of tea…

The pale straw-colored tea liquor is delicate yet quite flavorful with pronounced notes of sweet, ripe melon and the faint whisper of floral hints.

This is a simply exquisite white tea which shows us tea in its most natural and least processed state, so incredibly different from the dark tones of a more familiar Ceylon black tea.

Refreshing and soothing to the spirit while the cold winter winds blow outside.

“And now let us welcome the New Year

Full of things that have never been.”  ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Saturday Morning Tea

Good morning, dear tea friends! As promised, this morning’s tea is a white tea from the Arya estate in Darjeeling, located in northeastern India.

Called Arya Pearl, its processing is as precious as its name. The full leaf sets are plucked at dawn when the dew is still wet on the leaves. After drying in the sun for several hours they are then carefully rolled in silk cloth and then allowed more drying time.

How does this white tea differ from the China Pai Mu Tan I reviewed last week, I wonder?

Aside from the obvious – grown in different countries – I immediately see a difference in the appearance of the leaf. While both teas are composed of the new growth plucking, the Arya Pearl’s leaves appear to be greener whereas the Pai Mu Tan had more of a white-ish appearance because of the abundance of fine white hairs all over the leaves. I don’t see as many white hairs on the Arya Pearl leaf, do you?

The wet leaf is very similar, with the Arya Pearl being a little longer and thinner.

I found the most pronounced difference to be in the flavor of the hot tea. The Arya Pearl has a strong vegetal aroma and flavor when it is hot. That was all I could taste. As the tea cooled down, however, more notes came out, including that sugar cookie note I really like.

I steeped the leaves for 8 minutes in 180F water. If you plan on re-steeping the leaves, you want to reduce the time on that first steeping.

The tea liquor is the same light straw color with a hint of green.

As I enjoy my second cup, the tea has cooled down considerably and I’m discovering some tropical fruity notes.

Tea continues to amaze and delight me in my journey with it. Not only can two teas from the same category taste different from one another but the same tea can exhibit different flavor notes at different temperatures! Have you ever experienced that? If so, I’d love to hear your tea story.

My company is closed this week for our annual vacation. I’ll be heading to Michigan soon to visit with my family so there won’t be a tea post next Saturday. Enjoy your tea and I’ll see you in 2 weeks.

Happy 236th birthday to the USA!

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

~first paragraph, Declaration of Independence, 1776

Saturday Morning Tea

Good morning, dear tea friends! This morning’s tea is another Pre-Chingming tea from the Fujian province of China. A white tea called Pre-Chingming Top Pai Mu Tan Organic, its plucking is of the new leaf shoot, or bud, plus the top two leaves. Pai Mu Tan, or Bai Mudan, translates to “white peony”, some say because of the shape of the leaves, others because of its fragrance.

Wow, look at that gorgeous leaf.

Many folks ask, “what is the difference between green tea and white tea?” After all, look at the leaf in the photo above. It’s green, right? Well, it’s all in the processing of the leaf. Whereas green tea leaves are heated up pretty much right away, whether steamed or pan fried, for example, to halt the oxidation of the leaf, white tea leaves are allowed to wither naturally in the sun, sometimes for several days. So, the leaves aren’t heated to halt oxidation. In fact, after withering, the leaves are piled and allowed to oxidize a little bit before they are baked to dry the leaves out for packing and transport.

As you can see from the photo above, white tea leaves are handled as minimally as possible so that they remain in the same state as when they’re plucked.

I steeped the leaves for 3 minutes in 175F water. The aroma is light and delicate and smells just like vanilla cookies. That note comes through in the silky smooth flavor as well, along with some nuances of melon. This tea is quite sweet with no vegetal flavor at all.

I love to sip white tea out of this teabowl so I can see the spiral shape within. Do you have a favorite teamug or teabowl?

Next week I’d like to review another white tea but from another country. It’s called Arya Pearl. Can you guess what country it’s from?

Have a wonderful week!

“Your creativity is waiting for you like a dancing partner.”

~Barbara Sher

Saturday Morning Tea

Happy New Year, dear friends! A brand new year always fills me up with feelings of hope and excitement for new adventures. So, let us sit down together and continue our adventures in tea, shall we?

This morning I’m enjoying a delicate white tea in my cup, from the Adam’s Peak estate in the Dimbula district on the island of Sri Lanka (Ceylon). A rare tea composed of the new tips of the tea bush. To preserve their unique style, this tea is entirely hand processed and dried in sunlight. I wrote about a previous lot of this tea here.

I steeped the tea in 160 degree F water for 4 minutes. Guidelines suggest 170 degree F water but I wanted to see what flavor would be revealed in the slightly cooler water.

As I lifted the infuser from my glass teapot, I caught the faint whiff of flowers from the wet leaf.

The wet leaf reminds me of small swords, probably the influence of my rapt immersion in the world of the Seven Kingdoms lately. If you haven’t read George R.R. Martin’s tale of the Game of Thrones, I highly recommend it.

More swords…but I digress from our talk of tea…

The pale straw-colored tea liquor is delicate yet quite flavorful with pronounced notes of sweet, ripe melon and the faint whisper of floral hints.

This is a simply exquisite white tea which shows us tea in its most natural and least processed state, so incredibly different from the dark tones of a more familiar Ceylon black tea.

Refreshing and soothing to the spirit while the cold winter winds blow outside.

“And now let us welcome the New Year

Full of things that have never been.”  ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Saturday Morning Tea

This is a perfect tea for a gray, drizzly day like today. Or, for that matter, an icy winter day. In my cup this morning is a garden bouquet – a white tea that has been delicately scented with jasmine blossoms. It is called Jasmine Silver Needles.

I have read that it is customary to serve jasmine tea to guests to welcome them to your home. What a lovely way to welcome someone.

The tea buds are plucked in early spring and processed as white tea. The buds remind me of little pea pods. Once the jasmine plants get ready to bloom, the flower buds are plucked in the early morning and kept cool all day. As early evening approaches, the flower buds are mixed with the tea buds. As the night blooming jasmine flowers open, the tea buds absorb their scent. This process is repeated every day over the course of a week. So, a lot of work goes into creating this beautiful, unique tea.

I steeped the tea for 3 minutes in 180 degree F water. Another name for this tea could be Jasmine Silver Swords. What do you think?

A candy sweet, floral aroma greeted me the moment I lifted the lid of my glass teapot. The pale, straw-colored liquor is quite sweet and softly floral, allowing the mellow whisper of white tea to come forward as well.

As I sat quietly and sipped my tea, I thought about how many times we can get lost in our thoughts and, at those times, we aren’t really fully inhabiting our bodies. You know that spacey, kind of out of it feeling you can get? Yup, you’re not fully in your body. You’re off somewhere else, in the inner space of thought energy.

There are many ways, exercise being one of them, that can bring us back into our bodies and away from the hamster wheel of thoughts running through our minds. Sipping and appreciating a delicious cup of tea is another way. What do you do to bring yourself back into your body? I meditate and do yoga and have even been learning T’ai Chi again. And, of course, I drink tea!

Have a great week, dear tea friends!

“And the day came when the risk [it took] to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” 

~Anais Nin