Fuding White Treasure Organic

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-)

Two Leaves and a Bud Organic White Peony

White Peony is a classic Chinese white tea, harvested early in the Spring before the buds have truly opened, then gently processed.  White Peony is a direct translation of the Mandarin bai mudan, which means "white peony."  According to the wiki article on White Peony, it's a very broad type of white tea from Fujian province in the Southeast of China.  In fact, Drum Mountain white, which I have had a long time ago, is a type of White Peony.  The tea itself generally has a soft, gentle taste, with delicate floral notes and a mild natural sweetness.

Two Leaves and a Bud is a high end tea company, selling both loose and bag tea (most if not all organic).  They are not cheap, but they do put out good tea, and offer some of the best bag tea I've found anywhere...actual full leaf tea in large pyramid-ish sachets that let the tea bloom as it steeps.  This is probably as close as you can get to loose tea without actually crossing over.  The high price tag is a stumbling block, but we usually find Two Leaves and a Bud on clearance at stores like Marshalls or TJ Maxx, and at $4 for a box of 15 high quality tea bags, I feel like I'm getting an acceptable deal.  My wife and I have also tried Two Leaves' Assam and Jasmine Green, both of which were excellent.  Perhaps my largest quibble with Two Leaves is for the price tag, I think I'd prefer to see estate teas, rather than homogenized blends.

So, then, Organic White Peony from Two Leaves and a Bud.  The box and website recommend brewing at a "light boil," which confuses the scientist in me...what is a "light boil?"  Water is either boiling or not.  I suppose what they mean is a hair under actually boiling...about 160-170 degrees Fahrenheit, or to follow my rule of thumb, steaming briskly but not bubbling.  Steeping times can vary with whites, but less than two minutes is a good benchmark.  I didn't try it here, but a lot of white teas respond well to multiple infusions.  But how does it taste?  I think this is the classic White Peony flavor...mild, with a little bit of floral notes, and some natural sweetness.  The sweetness grew on me throughout the cup, developing into a faint suggestion of honey.  The tea has a medium and very clean body, with no astringency at all.  Overall, clean and somewhat sweet, but could use more flavor...it's not quite boring, but not exactly exciting.  Score: 80 (B-)

Republic of Tea Silver Rain white tea

It's hard to believe this is my first review of a true, unflavored, loose leaf white tea, one of my favorite types of tea.  While Darjeeling is commonly referred to as the "Champagne of teas," I've always felt quality white tea should really be granted that status...it's smoother, cleaner, and simply more elegant than Darjeeling.  White tea is almost exclusively Chinese, and is the least processed of any type of tea.  For example, black teas are picked, bruised to expose the essential oils, then allowed to oxidize (a process that is frequently and incorrectly called "fermentation."  Actual fermented tea is called Pu-erh, and is a story for another day.)  Green tea is picked, allowed to wilt, and then usually heated to halt any further oxidation.  White tea is picked and allowed to wilt, then dried to halt oxidation, sometimes in steam, but in the highest quality teas, in nothing more than direct sunlight.  The resulting leaves are minimally processed, and brew up a liquor that is fresh and clean, often with lots of natural sweetness and floral notes.  Perhaps not surprisingly, white tea is often the priciest of teas, due to a limited harvesting window and non-mechanized processing.  Though the price is a stumbling block, I still think everyone should try a quality white tea.  The taste and texture are similar in some ways to many green teas, but without the strong vegetal and mineral notes that often show up in greens, and with more natural sweetness and fruit or floral elements.

So, then, on a recent trip to Mrs. Bridges, the mood for a white struck, and I decided to try the Silver Rain from The Republic of Tea.  I'll admit, I tried the tea on name alone; one of the best teas I've ever had is a famous Chinese white called Silver Needle...it's absolutely amazing, and rather outrageously priced.  So, I thought, Silver Rain is close to Silver Needle, but won't break the wallet.  And it was close.  Silver Rain is a high quality tea, and while I won't put it on the same level as Silver Needle, it's almost there.  It brews up a fresh and clean cup, with natural sweetness and plenty of hints of fruit.  I find Silver Needle to have more floral notes and a more complex profile, while Silver Rain has more straightforward sweetness and fruit.

While I didn't brew this cup myself experience has taught me that brewing white tea is every bit as tricky as green.  It requires a lower steeping temperature and careful attention to steeping times, and usually requires more loose tea...one variant I tried in the past called for two full "soup spoons" per cup!  As for temperature, it will vary from tea to tea, but briskly steaming (not bubbling) water is a good rule of thumb.  Most white should only steep for a minute or two.  However, all this attention to detail (as well as the steep price) is at least somewhat offset by the fact that most white teas respond very well to multiple infusions.  All that is required is a slightly longer brew for each new infusion.  Though I didn't try it with the Silver Rain, the Silver Needle was usually good for four infusions per cup.  The tea may cost an arm and a leg, but that's still a bargain you won 't find with black tea!

Score:  90 (A-)  I think I talked as much about Silver Needle as I did Silver Rain, which is perhaps unfair; Silver Rain is a decent, quality tea in it's own right, and at least somewhat cheaper than Silver Needle.  Also worth noting, white teas are naturally low in caffeine, usually as low as 5 - 20 mg per cup.

Iced Tea Double Feature

It's been a busy couple of months!  Cups of tea, let alone the time to write about them have been few and far between, but a few weeks ago, the wife and I did make a couple of excellent pitchers of iced white tea.  In each case, we filled a big pot partway with water (~2.5 quarts in a 5 quart pot), approximated the number of tea bags for a good strong brew (about 25, though it depends on the tea), and steeped for about 2 minutes (white tea is fragile and usually doesn't overbrew well, especially bag tea).  We scooped the tea bags out, sweetened lightly, and chilled.


Bentley's Ginger Peach White Tea

As a stand alone cup of hot tea, I don't think I'd have that much to say about this tea.  It's pleasant, but pretty unremarkable.  As a well brewed, slightly sweetened ice tea, however, it really shines.  The touch of sweetener, agave nectar in this case, really brings the peach to the forefront, while the tingle of the ginger and the brightness of the tea balance out the profile.  White tea can be finicky and bitter if brewed too long or too hot, or even if it's just not a high enough quality, but I find Bentley's to be decent quality tea, especially for a bag, and a bit more forgiving than some other brands.


Overall, a great cup of summertime iced tea, and pretty easy to make. B+


Tea Nation Raspberry White Tea

Tea Nation's Raspberry White was the second big batch we tried, and it was a bit more finicky than the Bentley's, but with some creativity, came out great.  After our initial steeping in the big pot, I fished out the 25 or so tea bags, and sweetened with some regular old sugar (couldn't find the agave nectar), and taste tested.  My initial impression was that we'd overdone some aspect, and it had come out a hair bitter.  Not wanting to waste a huge pot of fresh tea, my wife did some quick thinking, and grabbed a bag of frozen raspberries from the freezer (I love raspberries, so we're not often without them in some form) and chucked them in the still warm tea.  We let them sit for a few hours to thaw and let the flavors mingle, then chilled the whole thing.  The result was really excellent...more an ice tea based fruit drink than true iced tea, but semantics aside, it was great!  The tea provided a nice astringent backbone for the huge raspberry flavor, and the raspberries were of course, delicious.

I have to give the tea itself a C, as it was kind of finicky and unexciting, but the end result was far better than that, thanks to the wife's quick thinking.


I started writing this entry over a month ago!  Children certainly are free time vampires...it's good to be writing again, though, even if it's not as often as I'd like.  I hope to be posting a bit more often over the next few months, though I'll just have to take it as it comes.  I have a few good posts hanging out in the back of my mind, as well as another project in the background (running related), but all these things depend on the whims of a colicky infant.  Anyway, hopefully more to come in the near future.