Yunnan white tea · Jingmai Mountain · one bud one leaf · unrolled
Picked before nine, withered in the dark, never rolled and never dried in the sun. One side of the leaf is silver, the other is black.
Honey and white flowers → a soft, thick body → a long sweet finish
Top, middle and finish are a way of organising time, not a standard term or a promise. Re-tasted against each lot; weight and brewing are below.
Aroma and palate, in the order they reach you.
Typical of the style · re-tasted against each lot
No heat was used to fix this leaf, so it kept working slowly through a long, cool wither. The compounds that build up over those hours read as honey and white flowers instead of the cut-grass notes a quickly dried green tea carries. General to the style; not an analysis of this lot.
These leaves were never rolled. Rolling breaks the cells and puts the flavour on the surface, to be spent in the first steep; unrolled leaf gives it up slowly, which is why the body reads thick rather than sharp and why there is still something left in the third infusion. Typical of the style.
That sweetness is a return, not sugar in the cup: as the light astringency clears, the sweet compounds become noticeable again. The slow, dark wither leaves more of them intact than a hot-fixed green tea would. Typical of the style.
A silver bud and a near-black leaf back, in the same pile, and a cup that lands between a green tea and an aged white. None of that is an accident of the photograph.
Green tea and oolong are fixed with heat to stop oxidation. This leaf is not. It keeps oxidising slowly in cool air, out of the sun, until it is dry — which is why the leaf darkens and the cup sits between a green tea and an aged white rather than at either end.
Rolling breaks the leaf cells and puts the flavour on the surface, ready to be spent in one steep. These leaves were never rolled, so they stay whole and long, and they keep giving across four infusions instead of one.
Wild old-tree is the producer's description of the material; no tree age, garden plot or yield is claimed here. The earth-walled room, the bamboo trays and the night wither are also the producer's account, repeated as given rather than as something we watched.
What you can see
A white tea shows you almost everything before the water goes in, because nothing was done to hide it. Three checks you can do yourself.
Long, flat and unrolled, silvery-white on the bud and near-black on the leaf back, both in the same pile. A pile that is all green or all brown was picked or withered differently from this one.
Pale gold and clear. Cloudiness means broken leaf or a steep that ran long; a deep orange-red cup means the water was too hot or the leaf sat in it too long.
Only what the producer states: Jingmai Mountain in Yunnan, one bud and one leaf picked before nine in the morning, unrolled, shade-dried, loose leaf sold by net weight.
Hot is the house method. Cold is a general white-tea guide, not measured on this lot.
Parameters stated for this product · adjust to taste, then keep them
5 g in 300 ml at 90 °C for three minutes, no lid. Four infusions, adding about 30 seconds each time. This leaf was never fixed with heat, so it takes hot water without turning bitter the way a green tea would.
If the cup tastes thin rather than bitter, the leaf is spent. Add time, not more leaf.
4 g in 500 ml of cold water, six hours in the fridge, then strain and drink within 24 hours. Cold water takes the honey and flower notes and leaves most of the astringency behind.
A general cold-brew guide for white tea, not measured on this batch.
A number is an identity, not a stock code. Where a field is unknown, it is left out rather than guessed.
One leaf, six fates. Nothing here is blended across regions.
