White teas range in flavor from delicate and flowery to surprisingly robust, and everywhere in between. Though greens and blacks have a huge range as well, white tea's variety never fails to surprise me. Fuding White Treasure, an Upton Teas purchase, is no exception. The big, gently dried leaves remind you that the tea plant is in fact an evergreen...these look an awful lot like large soft pine needles.
Steeped at 180 degrees for three minutes Fuding White Treasure brews up a cup that's both sturdy and still pretty delicate. It has a vegetal backbone and a kind of toasted note, yet also sweet flavors of honey and melon. The body of the tea is very smooth and clean...velvety, even. This is probably the thickest, smoothest tea I've had yet. I like to experiment with whites and greens by adding citrus, lemon or grapefruit juice, but I don't think the flavors will quite mesh here. The honey, melon, and roasted leaves all mingle into a long finish, with the honey lasting the longest of the flavors.
Overall, this is a really nice cup. It's got a bit more vegetation that I usually like in my whites, but the notes make for a really complex, mellow cup with a long finish. Score: 90 (A-)
