TeaChat

Hiya.. I just got a white darjeeling from Tea Emporeum and I'm trying to brew it like I do with Pai Mutan and silver needles and I think I'm not getting it right. It might be that I haven't had any white teas in a few months and I just forgot how to do it right. But I remember that Pai Mutan in particular was very easy to get right, in fact almost impossible to mess it up (one of the few unique teas that are so accomodating). So.. please enlighten me!

The white Darjeeling offerings from Tea Emporium were excellent the year. I would suggest brewing for 2 minutes at just below boiling point as a starting point and working up from there. I also love Pai Mutan by the way!

Wow, 2 minutes?! I get great results with 5.5-6 minutes! The one I got is silver tips. It's very nice, but being almost 2x more expensive than a good Pai Mutan.. I don't know.. maybe I'm just more used to Pai Mutan but I like it better, although I'd love to compare them side to side.

For me, this tea is best with water at 180 degrees and 2 heaping teaspoons.

I absolutely love white and green darjeeling, I've had the Spring Wonder from Tao of Tea and it was one of the best teas I've tried so far! Of course it's a matter of taste, I like my teas mild, but for white darjeeling up to 2 minutes is enough.

I think Pai Mu Tan and white darjeeling are completely different tastes though, Pai Mu Tan is much more sour and has a harsher taste, where as darjeeling is more woodsy

A good Pai mu tan is never sour. The only place where I got good Pai Mu Tan is inpursuitoftea.com. My problem with them is that it's the only tea of theirs that I really like and that isn't very expensive, and I don't want to order a single tea and pay shipping on it..

To my taste, Pai Mu Tan is a lot better than the only good white darjeeling I tried - to be fair, PMT is my all time favorite along with Silver Needles. I actually think that the two teas are very similar except that SN is a bit more buttery while PMT's used leaves have an unpleasant smell (that never transfers to the tea itself).

I usually brew mines at 180F for 3-4 minutes.