Moonlight White
What is white tea?
White tea is the least handled of all teas. The young leaves and buds are only withered and dried, never rolled or heated, so they keep a pale cup and a soft, honeyed sweetness. The difference between white tea and black tea is what happens after picking: black tea is rolled and fully oxidised, white tea is barely touched. That is why it is lighter and gentler, and why it likes water below the boil, around 85°C.
This tea
Pale gold. Apricot, honey, dry hay. Cool and soft.
Gentle and forgiving. An easy first cup that still tastes of somewhere.
Taste profile
1 = subtle · 5 = pronounced- SweetnessHoney, soft and slow
- BodyLight and silky
- Fruit & floralApricot and dry hay
- Earth & woodClean, none to speak of
- AstringencyBarely there
- BitternessNone below the boil
- CaffeineGentle; cooler water draws less
Compared with the other teas in the box. A cup of any of them has less caffeine than a cup of filter coffee; less leaf, cooler water and shorter steeps give less.
- Origin
- Jinggu / Simao, Yunnan
- Plant
- Yunnan large-leaf (Camellia sinensis var. assamica)
- This batch
- Withered in darkness
- Water
- 85 °C
- Desk · 200 ml
- 90 s, +60 s, +90 s
- Gongfu · 100 ml
- 20 s, +5 s each
How to read the steeps
Each figure is one steep, poured off before the next. “90 s, +60 s, +90 s” means 90 seconds; then 60 seconds longer, 2 min 30 s; then 90 seconds longer again, 4 min. “20 s, +5 s each” means 20 seconds, then 5 seconds longer every time: 25, 30, 35… Keep the same leaf for every steep. In the app, the timer counts each steep for you.
