White tea is made in the simplest way of any tea.

The buds and leaves are withered — often in the sun and open air — then dried. That's it. No heat to "fix" them, no rolling to twist them.

The name comes from the fine silvery-white down that covers the young buds. Hold a good Silver Needle to the light and you'll see it shimmer.

Because so little is done to it, there's nowhere for poor leaf to hide. Good white tea tastes gentle, sweet and clean. That honesty is the whole point.

White tea is graded by how young and tender the picking is. From finest to fullest:

Silver Needle (Bai Hao Yin Zhen) — plump single buds only. The top grade. Clean, delicate, with a soft honey sweetness.

White Peony (Bai Mu Dan) — one bud plus a leaf or two. A little fuller and more floral. Shaped almost like a flower.

Gong Mei / Shou Mei — picked later, with more mature leaf. Hardier and fuller, with real body. Shou Mei is the everyday one: great value, ages beautifully, and can even be simmered.

Think of it as a ladder: Silver Needle → White Peony → Shou Mei. Prices follow the same order, so there's a white tea for every day and every occasion.

White tea's magic is in what doesn't happen to it.

Green tea is fired. Oolong is bruised and rolled. Black tea is fully oxidised. White tea skips almost all of that.

The leaves are simply laid out to wither, then dried. Traditionally the sun does most of the work.

This is also why white tea rewards good weather and skilled hands. With only two steps, there's nowhere to fix a mistake. Bad weather, and the buds turn dull and grey instead of bright and silver. Done well, the result is pure and effortless.

Once you understand the grades, you understand the price.

Silver Needle is nothing but young spring buds. They're hand-picked in a short window, one by one, under strict rules — no rain-picked buds, no thin or damaged buds, only the plump, perfect ones.

It can take around 100,000 hand-picked buds to make a single kilo.

Add soaring demand for famous Fuding white tea, and you can see why top-grade Silver Needle isn't cheap.

• Silver Needle: buds only. The most refined, and the most prized.
• White Peony: bud plus a leaf or two. More body, gentler price.
• Shou Mei: mature leaf, picked later. The most affordable and robust.

Higher grade isn't "better for you" — it's about how delicate a cup you want.

Here's something most white tea sellers won't tell you.

Fujian is the birthplace of white tea, and Fuding is its most famous home. But fame has sent Fuding prices soaring. So it pays to know the alternatives — and we carry all three.

Fuding Silver Needle — the classic benchmark. Sun-withered, plump and downy, with bright honey-and-hay freshness. The textbook silver needle.

Zhenghe Silver Needle — from higher mountains, withered more indoors. Slimmer buds, deeper and mellower, with a "wild mountain" character. Made by very traditional methods, and better value than Fuding.

Shou Ning Silver Needle — from a high-mountain eco tea area between Fuding and Zhenghe. Sun-dried aroma, honey and orchid. A quiet gem.

Yunnan Silver Needle — grown far away on Yunnan's big-leaf trees. Bigger, bolder buds, richer and longer-lasting in the cup. Excellent value while Fujian prices climb.

Same tea, four characters. Trying them side by side is half the fun.

White tea is unusual: it's loved both fresh and aged.

Fresh white tea is light, bright and refreshing — all delicate florals, hay and honey.

Aged white tea is a different drink entirely. Over years of careful storage, it deepens. The fresh notes fade, and warmer ones take over — dried plum, mellow honey, a thick, smooth, comforting cup.

There's an old Chinese saying: "one year a tea, three years a medicine, seven years a treasure." It captures how much a well-aged white tea is prized. (A traditional saying about culture, not a health claim.)

Our Aged Shou Mei 2014 is a lovely way to taste what time does — smooth, with a ripe plum aroma.

White tea is usually loose. But it's also pressed into cakes — for good reason.

Pressed into a cake, white tea takes up less space and ages slowly and evenly. It's the traditional way to keep white tea for the long haul.

Ours are naturally aged:

• Yunnan Silver Needle Cake — "Moonlight White" from ancient Yunnan trees, tip buds only, aged since 2018. Light honey sweetness.
• White Peony Cake — from a wild tea field in Ningde, Fujian, aged since 2021, with a classic aged-white aroma.
• Yunnan Silver Needle Petite Cake — high-mountain Lincang buds, honey and orchid.
• Yunnan White Tea & Tangerine Peel Mini Cake — white tea pressed with tangerine peel. Refreshing yet rich.
• Aged Shou Mei Cake — aged Shou Mei pressed into a cake. Mellow, smooth and comforting, with the dried-plum warmth of a good aged white. Made for slow, easy drinking (and it takes well to simmering).

White tea is barely processed, so it holds on to a lot of the leaf's natural antioxidants. That's a big part of its appeal.

We'll leave the bigger health claims to others — we'd rather it earn its place by tasting good.

On caffeine: white tea does have some, as all real tea does. Here's the surprise — "white" doesn't mean "lowest". Caffeine sits mostly in the buds, so all-bud Silver Needle is actually on the higher side, while leafier Shou Mei and aged white teas are gentler. As a rough guide, a cup is around 15–30mg, against 40–70mg for black tea and 95–120mg for coffee.

Which white tea should I start with?

It depends on whether you want it fresh or aged.

If you want fresh, start with our best-seller, Fuding Silver Needle — the most iconic white tea there is. From there, try White Peony for more body. And Shou Mei is the everyday one: great value, easy to love, the white tea a lot of us reach for daily.

If you're curious about aged white tea, both our Silver Needle and White Peony cakes come in a 50g tasting portion — a low-risk way to dip in.

How do I avoid a fake "aged" white tea?

Good question — the aged market has its tricksters. Naturally aged tea fades gradually and unevenly. Be wary of anything suspiciously uniform or blackish, and steer clear of musty or sour smells. Real white tea, new or old, should smell clean and taste smooth, with an easy sweetness and little bitterness.

Is white tea caffeine-free?

No — and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It has caffeine, usually less than coffee, but Silver Needle (all buds) sits higher than you'd think. Sensitive? Reach for Shou Mei or an aged white, keep your steeps short, and enjoy it earlier in the day.

How do I store white tea?

Fresh white tea likes to be sealed, cool, dry and away from light and smells. Aged white tea and cakes are the opposite — they want a dry, airy, stable spot so they can keep slowly deepening. Each product page tells you which.

Why is white tea so expensive?

Because the best of it is genuinely hard to make — and there are no shortcuts.

It's picked in a tiny window. The finest Silver Needle is only the first spring buds, gathered over a couple of short weeks. Miss the window, and that's it for the year.

It's picked by hand, fussily. Only plump, perfect buds make the cut — no rain-picked, thin, damaged or off-colour buds. It can take around 100,000 buds to make a single kilo.

It's made by the weather. With just two steps — wither and dry — there's nothing to hide behind. A run of cloud or damp, and the buds turn dull and grey instead of bright and silver. Great white tea needs sun, timing and a steady hand.

And Fuding has become famous. Demand for big-name Fuding white tea has pushed its prices up fast in recent years.

That last point is exactly why we also hunt down silver needles from Zhenghe, Shou Ning and Yunnan — same beautiful tea, made with the same care, at a far kinder price.