Tea Types: White Tea

What is white tea?

White tea is produced from young tea leaves and/or buds that are hand-picked from the tea plant and carefully withered to remove some of the moisture and then dried. A white tea infusion yields a pale, Champagne colored beverage with a delicate and smooth taste. White tea drinkers enjoy a “peach pit” quality to the taste with lingering notes of honey. Some of these notes may be enhanced with multiple infusions. Join us for a future blog entry on multiple infusions. White tea offers a low caffeine option.

Traditionally, loose leaf white tea is classified as either “Silver Needle” (Yin Zhen Bai Hao) or “White Peony” (Bai Mu Dan). While many white teas originate from China; India, Kenya, Malawi and Sri Lanka are manufacting white teas, as well.

Barefoot Tea, Silver Needle

White tea is growing in popularity in the U.S., particularly in bottled tea beverages as the word gets out about the apparent health benefits of white tea including its low level of caffeine and height of polyphenols.* However, while newer to Americans, white tea is steeped in history with its first production in 11th century China.

At Barefoot Tea, we offer Silver Needle, tea leaf buds said to be plucked only a few days of the year. We recommend a 2-3 minute steep time and 30 seconds for multiple infusions.

Additionally, we offer our Gingerly White tea, which combines the best of White Peony tea and soothing ginger for a low caffeine, digestive helper.*

Since we love white tea in all forms, we also provide palate pleasing, combination blends of flavored green and white tea. Check out our Rocky Pont White and Stone Harbor Blend teas, built with care in taste, health and hospitali-TEA.* (OK, we couldn’t help ourselves with that reference!)

*Barefoot Tea provides tea and health information published in trade journals and public periodicals as a courtesy to our customers and is not intended as medical advice.

December 2, 2010 at 1:43 pm | Tea 101, Uncategorized | No comment

Barefoot Tea