Can You Ruin White Tea?
What is the taste of old tea?
This is one of the questions I am looking to answer during my time in FuDing. What sort of flavors come out in aged tea and what is the ideal taste? Unfortunately this question does not have a straight answer.
The problem with exploring aged white tea is that aged white tea is a fairly new thing. White tea in general did not really become popular until around 2015 and aging white tea, from my understanding, isnt much older and is somewhat piggybacking on the popularity of aged pu er. What this means is that it’s hard to find consistency in conversations about aged whites.
While I have yet to really focus on aged whites, instead starting with fresh whites, I have begun to poke at the topic.
There is a tea shop around the corner from my house that has some wonderful teas. The shop is run by two ladies and they are the wonderful source of the jasmine tea that blew my mind.
I was at their shop last week and I was asking the owners if white tea was better before the popularity boom. The boss’ answer was very interesting. She explained that while the material was better, say in 2008, the making was worse.
The material was better because the demand was lower. This meant that trees were not over cultivated nor were they over harvested. There was more biodiversity in the fields and with few pickings the material was better. “The buds use to be like this.” Said the owner pointing to her thumb. “Now they are like this” She said pointing to her pinky. Furthermore since the tea sold for such a low price, there were no pesticides or fertilizers. 50g of white tea could sell for as low as 3 yuan, about fifty cents, and as my friend explained, for tea that cheap there is no reason to spend extra money on things like pesticides; you weren't going to make the money back. That being said, even though the material was better, the making wasn't as good for similar reasons. You wouldn't spend a lot of time and energy to make a white tea that was going to sell for cheap, especially when you can focus on a black tea that will sell for more. “2017 was the best year.” The boss said. “The material was good and the making was good” (This conversation was originally in chinese) “You know I have a lot of 2017 Silver Needle.” I said with a smile.
The boss perked up “Bring it tomorrow.”
At this moment I want to take a jump back to 2017. Its summer and I have just moved to China. I had done some traveling in china the spring before and met a white tea maker I liked. When I first moved to China I made multiple trips to see him and bought a number of teas off him. I soon stopped buying from him as I didn't like some of his business practices. You can read about that more in an article I wrote in 2018. In the years that followed I would occasionally drink his teas but was never too impressed by them. I kept that as I was curious about aging, but I kept them haphazardly. They were kept in their original bag and usually tucked into the corner of a shelf or box. I would sometimes reach for one and find the bag to be slightly opened, being this way for who knows how long. As I had no plans to sell any of these teas I wasn’t really worried.
Flash forward to afew weeks ago. At another shop, the makers of the Vanilla Aroma Silver Needle, we drank one of these teas. They were fairly impressed by the smell and material. Upon tasting it they said it was pretty good, but it had not been kept well. “I can taste the environment” the boss said. (In chinese). They said it was a good tea but I hadnt kept it well and gave me an extra sealed bag to keep it in. When I brought the ladies a similar tea I got a different response.
I handed them the bag. They opened it, took one sniff and said “It’s ruined. I can’t drink it” I had brought them a few bags and they quickly went through them all and quickly came to the same conclusion. they handed it to another woman in the shop at the time and they all agreed and handed the teas back to me. I was a little shocked and honestly felt slightly embarrassed/awkward. “可惜了” They would say shaking their heads, which means something along the lines of “pitiful” or “It’s really a shame”. I asked if there was anything I could do to save the teas and they simply said no.
This brings me back to my original question. What is the taste of well aged white tea? Both shops had known that my storage wasn’t good, but the first shop took the time to taste the tea and found there was some good parts to it, while the second shop considered it simply ruined by the smell alone. I found myself asking myself “What smell were they looking for?” “What taste are they looking for?” I have tasted some 2013 white teas (at the first shop) and one tasted dry and woodsy while the other tasted like it was made yesterday. While my storage was less than optimal I find it hard to believe that the tea was ruined. I tasted the tea and still liked it. I have sent the teas to many people via mystery boxes and gotten amazing reviews.
This experience really brings more questions than it does knowledge.
It is an experience that not only shows me how much I have yet to learn about tea flavors and tea storage. While I do wish I had been more diligent with proper storage I've never been one to regret things I've done due to lack of knowledge. All my tea is sealed up now and who knows, maybe in seven years a tea maker will tell me about how 2024 was the best year for tea and I can let them know the good news.
This is one of the questions I am looking to answer during my time in FuDing. What sort of flavors come out in aged tea and what is the ideal taste? Unfortunately this question does not have a straight answer.
The problem with exploring aged white tea is that aged white tea is a fairly new thing. White tea in general did not really become popular until around 2015 and aging white tea, from my understanding, isnt much older and is somewhat piggybacking on the popularity of aged pu er. What this means is that it’s hard to find consistency in conversations about aged whites.
While I have yet to really focus on aged whites, instead starting with fresh whites, I have begun to poke at the topic.
There is a tea shop around the corner from my house that has some wonderful teas. The shop is run by two ladies and they are the wonderful source of the jasmine tea that blew my mind.
I was at their shop last week and I was asking the owners if white tea was better before the popularity boom. The boss’ answer was very interesting. She explained that while the material was better, say in 2008, the making was worse.
The material was better because the demand was lower. This meant that trees were not over cultivated nor were they over harvested. There was more biodiversity in the fields and with few pickings the material was better. “The buds use to be like this.” Said the owner pointing to her thumb. “Now they are like this” She said pointing to her pinky. Furthermore since the tea sold for such a low price, there were no pesticides or fertilizers. 50g of white tea could sell for as low as 3 yuan, about fifty cents, and as my friend explained, for tea that cheap there is no reason to spend extra money on things like pesticides; you weren't going to make the money back. That being said, even though the material was better, the making wasn't as good for similar reasons. You wouldn't spend a lot of time and energy to make a white tea that was going to sell for cheap, especially when you can focus on a black tea that will sell for more. “2017 was the best year.” The boss said. “The material was good and the making was good” (This conversation was originally in chinese) “You know I have a lot of 2017 Silver Needle.” I said with a smile.
The boss perked up “Bring it tomorrow.”
At this moment I want to take a jump back to 2017. Its summer and I have just moved to China. I had done some traveling in china the spring before and met a white tea maker I liked. When I first moved to China I made multiple trips to see him and bought a number of teas off him. I soon stopped buying from him as I didn't like some of his business practices. You can read about that more in an article I wrote in 2018. In the years that followed I would occasionally drink his teas but was never too impressed by them. I kept that as I was curious about aging, but I kept them haphazardly. They were kept in their original bag and usually tucked into the corner of a shelf or box. I would sometimes reach for one and find the bag to be slightly opened, being this way for who knows how long. As I had no plans to sell any of these teas I wasn’t really worried.
Flash forward to afew weeks ago. At another shop, the makers of the Vanilla Aroma Silver Needle, we drank one of these teas. They were fairly impressed by the smell and material. Upon tasting it they said it was pretty good, but it had not been kept well. “I can taste the environment” the boss said. (In chinese). They said it was a good tea but I hadnt kept it well and gave me an extra sealed bag to keep it in. When I brought the ladies a similar tea I got a different response.
I handed them the bag. They opened it, took one sniff and said “It’s ruined. I can’t drink it” I had brought them a few bags and they quickly went through them all and quickly came to the same conclusion. they handed it to another woman in the shop at the time and they all agreed and handed the teas back to me. I was a little shocked and honestly felt slightly embarrassed/awkward. “可惜了” They would say shaking their heads, which means something along the lines of “pitiful” or “It’s really a shame”. I asked if there was anything I could do to save the teas and they simply said no.
This brings me back to my original question. What is the taste of well aged white tea? Both shops had known that my storage wasn’t good, but the first shop took the time to taste the tea and found there was some good parts to it, while the second shop considered it simply ruined by the smell alone. I found myself asking myself “What smell were they looking for?” “What taste are they looking for?” I have tasted some 2013 white teas (at the first shop) and one tasted dry and woodsy while the other tasted like it was made yesterday. While my storage was less than optimal I find it hard to believe that the tea was ruined. I tasted the tea and still liked it. I have sent the teas to many people via mystery boxes and gotten amazing reviews.
This experience really brings more questions than it does knowledge.
It is an experience that not only shows me how much I have yet to learn about tea flavors and tea storage. While I do wish I had been more diligent with proper storage I've never been one to regret things I've done due to lack of knowledge. All my tea is sealed up now and who knows, maybe in seven years a tea maker will tell me about how 2024 was the best year for tea and I can let them know the good news.