On-line Tea Shop

There are six main classes of Chinese teas. White tea is one of these. It is a uniquely Chinese "hidden gem" and almost exclusively produced in China.

White teas are lightly fermented. They are made by a relatively simple tea making process and are among the least processed Chinese teas. As such, they have very high level of natural anti-oxidant contain and low in caffeine.

White teas' brews are bright and clear in color with delicate and slightly sweet taste

Unlike other classes of Chinese teas that have many equal members in the family, white teas are ranked and labelled by a quality hierarchy as follows:

top quality : called Silver Needle - made of only top tips of unopen tea leaves (the shape is like that of a needle)
next quality grade : called White Peony - made of tips from the top and 2 or 3 leaves below top grade.
Other quality grades : Tribute Eyebrow etc. that include tea leaves even further down

To order our premium quality white teas, please visit WHITE TEA .

White tea - production

White teas are lightly fermented. (Some claim that white tea is unfermented, - but this is not the case.)

In China, the vast majority of white tea production is in the Fu Jian providence of southern China. There are pocket areas of Fu Jian that produce top quality white teas, such as Fu Ding, Zheng He and Jian Yang. FuDing white tea planation

These are typical hill counties with mild temperature all year round (18.5^oC on average) and plenty of rain fall (1700mm/year).

FuDing, for example, has a year average temperature of 18^oC and rain fall 1660mm. The soil condition in these areas is typically red or yellow.

Apart from China, Darjeeling and Sri Lanka also have very limited production of white tea. As such the overall supply of White tea in the world is scarcer then some other teas.

The original white tea was made of leaves from of particular tea plant called ‘Fu Ding big white tea’ (a special sub-type of the tea plant Camilla Sinensis - which is what all teas are made of). One of the characteristics of this plant is that its leaves are large with a strong needle like tip. When young, these leaves are covered by thick white fur.