This lovely white tea, with its contrasting silvery buds and black leaves, made me curious to brew and taste it!
Description: “The pale-yellow liquor that it renders echo’s the nutty sweetness and the first sips will hit you with an instant sweetness that starts out as nutty and gradually evolves toward a snow-pea like sweetness as you glide through the infusions.”
Instructions: 3g/150ml at 95°C ~ 100°C for 1~2 min | about 5 Infusions.*
* The packaging and website had slightly different recommendations, so I followed the website.
Review: To obtain the distinctive colour, it is my understanding that one side of the leaves were exposed and oxidised and the other side remains silvery white. The large fluffy buds and dark leaves had a sweet, fruity, and hay smell. After pre-warming the gaiwan, the warmed leaves had a sweet, hay, and baked crust smell.
- Infusion 1 (1 minute): I brewed for a minute and used boiling water since the tea was aged. The liquor had a pale tan colour with a sweet, floral, nutty, and hay smell. The smell and taste had a similar profile – sweet, hay, and roasted grains. When cooled, the liquor was more woody.
- Infusion 2 (1 minute and 15 seconds): The liquor was noticeably darker in colour and the taste leaned more toward hay and floral than sweet. The floral taste reminded me of chrysanthemum tisanes drinks.
- Infusion 3 (1 minute and 30 seconds): The liquor starts to become a dark amber-red colour. Flavour-wise, the liquor was starting to fade and was becoming more hay and floral than sweet. There is some dryness at the back of the throat.
- Infusion 4 (1 minute and 45 seconds): The darker amber liquor was faintly floral and woody with a fair amount of astringency.
- Infusion 5 (2 minutes): The colour of the liquor remained the same but the flavour was very mild and spent with a touch of nuttiness. Was like maple water.
Despite how the leaves looked dry, the infused leaves gradually became a unified olive-brown colour with a woody and smoked aroma.
I am still learning to develop my appreciation for white teas as many times I find the taste quite delicate and has a dominant ‘hay’ flavour. However, this one had a nice range of notes from sweet, floral, and nutty. I liked that it leaned more sweet and fruity in the first few infusions which is why I personally would have stopped at Infusion 3. This would be a nice white tea for someone who would like a white tea with more flavour or is more sweet and floral (4/5 rating).
