Tagged: silver needle
Two Italian studies found room-temperature white tea higher in antioxidants than hot
Two studies from one Italian research group found white tea steeped two hours in room-temperature water higher in antioxidant activity than the same tea steeped hot.
Pekoe Is the Xiamen Word for a Silver Needle Bud's Down
Orange Pekoe, the grade on nearly every tea box, borrows a Xiamen word for the white down on a tea bud, the same term that opens Silver Needle's own Chinese name. The modern OP grade is defined by leaving that down out.
Silver Needle's Down Carries the Least of Its Flavor
A 2020 study on the same Fuding cultivar used for Silver Needle separated the visible down from the leaf tissue beneath it and found the hairs chemically poor in catechins, caffeine, and amino acids by comparison.
The Oldest Tea Ever Found Was an All-Bud Pluck
Tea recovered from the 2,100-year-old tomb of Emperor Jing of Han consists almost entirely of buds, the same plant part modern silver needle is graded on, but the record contains no processing method and no tradition connecting the two.
The Cool-Water Rule Lost the Tasting to a Boil
A consumer panel preferred white tea brewed at 98°C over the retail-recommended 70°C, 43% to 13%, and at 98°C a seven-minute steep beat ten or fifteen minutes.
The cheaper white tea puts more in the cup
Silver needle costs about three times bai mudan, yet a normal brew of the cheaper bud-and-leaf tea delivers more theanine, caffeine, and catechin into the cup than the all-bud grade does.
One Year Tea, Three Years Medicine, Seven Years Treasure
A saying offered as old wisdom about aged white tea, set against what laboratory studies of stored white tea measured.
Silver Needle Pours the Least Caffeine, and Processing Is Not Why
The lowest-caffeine reputation of pure-bud white tea holds in the cup but fails at the reason, and the buds themselves run the story backward.
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.
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 and the export century.
What Is White Tea
White tea is the least-processed tea class: the bud and leaf of Camellia sinensis, withered and dried, no pan-fire and no rolling. What that names, the four products, and the standard behind it.