What is White Tea?

At Shang Tea, we specialize in providing high quality, authentic Chinese teas, with a special emphasis on white tea. When we tell customers that we specialize in white tea, a common question we get is “what is white tea?” Most people have heard of green tea and black tea, but white tea is generally less well known. We are going to outline our definition of white tea and what makes a true, authentic, Chinese white tea.

In particular, we believe that it is important to look at three factors when examining a tea:

1. How was the tea processed?
2. What cultivar of tea plant was used?
3. Where was the tea grown?

First, we must look at how a tea was processed. With white tea, the leaves are picked and then air dried to produce a light, clean tasting tea. Most white tea producers use a climate controlled room with rotating racks to slowly dry the tea over a couple of days. We still prefer to use the ancient method of sun drying on bamboo racks in order to impart a cleaner, smoother, and slightly more complex flavor on the tea. Regardless of the exact method, white tea is air dried at a low temperature.

Second, we must look at what cultivar of the tea plant (camelia sinensis) was used. Similar to apples (red delicious, pink lady, granny smith, etc.), tea plants have hundreds of different cultivars that yield different tastes and have very different leaf structures. For true, authentic white tea production, only two cultivars of the tea plant are used—Da Bai and Da Hao. These plants have lots of little tiny white hairs that grow on the buds and leaves. Certainly other cultivars of the tea plant can be air dried to produce a tea that is similar to true white tea, but we like to refer to these as young leaf white tea because they must be picked at a very young age in order to have a similar appearance to true white tea. This is because other cultivars of the tea plant only have small white hairs when the leaves are very young.

Lastly, we must look at where the tea is grown. Authentic white tea is currently only grown in the Fujian province of China because the Da Bai and Da Hao cultivars have only been commercially successful in this region, which is their native habitat. Attempts to grow it elsewhere have proven to be unsuccessful, as these cultivars do not grow as well in other regions and consequently do not have as good of a flavor. Even if the Da Bai and Da Hao cultivars are grown in other regions, it is important to note that growing cultivars in non-native regions can yield very different results due to different factors such as soil quality, temperature, moisture amount, etc.

To wrap things up a tea must be air dried, come from the Da Bai or Da Hao cultivars, and be produced in Fujian, China to be considered an authentic white tea. Thanks for reading, and make sure you check out the white teas that we have available on this site.