Exclusive Fuding white tea cake 2018 - Silver Needle-300g

Fuding Silver Needle White Tea Cake — Premium Aged

Also known as: Bai Hao Yin Zhen Cake, Fuding Silver Needle Cake, Premium White Tea Cake, Aged Silver Needle Cake

This is the top of the tree — our finest white tea cake, and the most prized.

Premium Fuding Silver Needle, all silver buds, thick with white down, pressed and aged since 2018. If a white tea cake can be a treasure, this is it.

Our Most Prized White Tea Cake

Let's be upfront: this is the most expensive cake we carry — and there's good reason.

It's pressed entirely from premium Silver Needle, the highest grade of white tea, made of plump spring buds alone. Silver Needle is scarce and costly even as loose tea; pressing top-grade buds into an aged cake takes it to another level again. This is a collector's white tea.

Thick With White Down

The first thing you notice is the down.

These Fuding buds are exceptionally hairy — coated in fine, silvery-white fuzz, the mark of premium bud tea. That down carries the soft, sweet fragrance the Chinese call hao xiang, and you'll see it drift beautifully in the cup as the cake brews. It's a sign of a genuine, top-grade silver needle.

What Is a White Tea Cake?

Most white tea is loose. But it's also pressed into cakes — and there's a good reason.

Pressed tight, a white tea cake takes up far less space, and it ages slowly and evenly — the leaves protect each other, so the whole cake matures as one. It's the traditional way to keep white tea for the long haul, and to build a collection you can drink through over the years.

"Store new, drink old" — and a premium silver-needle cake like this is exactly the kind you lay down.

This Cake

• Origin: Fuding, north-east Fujian — the birthplace of white tea and the region regarded as the best in China for it.
• Grade: Exclusive Silver Needle — all silver spring buds, densely downy.
• Vintage: pressed and naturally aged since 2018.
• Character: clean, elegant and honey-sweet, with the extra smoothness and depth that years of ageing bring to a fine silver needle.
• Weight: 300g full cake

The Four Types of White Tea

White tea is graded by how much bud and leaf goes into the pick. This cake is pressed from the very top grade — silver buds only:

Silver Needle is buds only; White Peony adds a leaf or two; Gong Mei and Shou Mei use more mature leaf. This cake sits right at the very top — premium Fuding buds — which is what makes it our finest, and priciest, white tea cake.

The Two Homes of White Tea: Fuding & Yunnan

White tea has two great homes, and they make quite different teas.

• Fuding (Fujian) — the birthplace of white tea and the region regarded as the best in China for it. Small-leaf bushes, bright and delicately sweet. This cake is premium Fuding.
• Yunnan — big-leaf, ancient-tree country in the south-west. Fuller, deeper, honey-rich white teas.

Prefer the Yunnan style, or a gentler price? Try our Yunnan Silver Needle Cake.

Or see the whole white tea collection.

White Tea, Antioxidants & Ageing

White tea is the least processed of all teas — just withered and dried — so it holds on to a lot of what's naturally in the fresh leaf, including its antioxidants. That light touch is a big part of white tea's appeal.

Ageing adds another layer. Over the years a white tea cake grows smoother, mellower and richer — and with premium buds to begin with, this one only gets more refined. It's long been treasured in China for exactly this. We'll leave the bigger health talk to others; we'd rather it earn its place by tasting wonderful.

Brew this Fuding Silver Needle Cake the right way

— check out our professional Brewing Guide, Storage Care and The Origins below 👇