Tagged: aged tea
Can Science Tell If an Aged White Tea Is Really That Old?
Forcing a white tea to look aged with heat does not just fake its year. It destroys the enzymes the leaf needed to age for real, and a new imaging method can now check a claimed vintage against the leaf itself.
Aging
How a kept white tea changes: the chemistry that softens astringency and darkens the cup over years, why Shou Mei and Bai Mudan get pressed into cakes, the standard that governs the pressed form, how to store one, and the market it has built.
Brewing White Tea
The complete reference for brewing white tea: water temperature by grade, dose, gongfu and western parameters, multiple infusions, cold brew, aged and compressed cakes, and what the ISO and GB tasting standards specify.
White Tea Grades
How white tea is classified into silver needle, bai mudan, gong mei, and shou mei, keyed to what is plucked and which cultivar under China's GB/T 22291 standard, and why grade sets price more than quality.
The History of White Tea
The white tea class, the withered-and-dried leaf, is a Qing-dynasty Fujian invention and not the Song tea that shares its name: silver needle from about 1796, the Da Bai cultivars, the export century, and the recent aged-white revival.