I haven’t had a white tea in a while and this one looked pretty interesting because it was hand-rolled and therefore, retained a gold and white appearance!
Description: “It is fuller than typical white teas with smooth sweet stone fruit and melon notes with caramel hints and no trace of bitterness or astringency.”
Instructions: 2-3 teaspoons per cup | 90°C / 194°F | 2-3 minutes
Review: When I first saw the dry leaves, I initially thought the package may have been mislabeled because it looked more like a golden tippy black tea. I had checked the website and confirmed it was right! The tea comes from the Kangaita Tea Factory which is a Fairtrade certified tea factory located at 2,000m elevation in Kenya.
The tea is processed and collected by 6,594 small-scale tea growers who are also shareholders of the factory. Since the tea was hand-rolled, the fuzzy leaves are gold and white. It smelled sweet, malty and faintly of hay. After steeping for 2.5 minutes, the wet leaves were a chocolate reddish-brown and smelled smokey and medicinal which is not what I expected! The liquor was reddish orange-brown with a very sweet malty cocoa smell.
The start of the sip starts off tasting more like a black tea – malty, sweet, and cocoa. However, the distinctive ‘hay’ flavour common in white teas slowly crept in with a hint of floral at the end of the sip. Once cooled, the liquor is much more mellow but left the mouth a bit dry. Overall, I have to say, I am happy I was able to try this! I really enjoyed it (4/5 rating).
- Type: White tea
- Origin: Kenya
- Caffeine: Unknown
- Other: Fair-trade factory
- Ingredients: White tea
- Company: What-Cha
The question of the post: Have you tried a white tea that was hand-rolled?
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