Official what White/Yellow are you drinking right now?

White and yellow teas are among the most subtle.


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Feb 23rd, '15, 16:52
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Re: Official what White/Yellow are you drinking right now?

by debunix » Feb 23rd, '15, 16:52

mganz42 wrote:I had thought that maybe some of that stamina was a result of the seasoning of my teapot... but surely the teapot alone can't make a tea last that much longer than it normally would, especially after only a year of use, right?
Can't imagine it adding more than an infusion or two at best. It must have been some tea. That's a tea I have most often bought from my local brick & mortar shop; I got a very nice version from Norbu once, but Greg doesn't have any available now, and Jing Tea Shop is also sold out. Sorry to not be more helpful.

Feb 24th, '15, 03:21
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Re: Official what White/Yellow are you drinking right now?

by ethan » Feb 24th, '15, 03:21

mganz42's ? for finding a good silver needle white tea leads me to ask a ? also.

"Do teachatters think "silver needle" is a useful term?

I ask because it seems to have been thrown around for marketing purposes. The only white tea that I ever liked was not designated silver needle.

I comment further (hoping to generate discussion & advice) that reference to the shape of leaves is sometimes a distraction rather than helpful information. Many of the leaves of the black tea that I love seem to have been torn & are not "beautifully" whole. Some teabloggers that dwell on the beauty of leaves before & after steeping, might forget that the main goals are great taste & aroma.

Feb 24th, '15, 12:13
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Re: Official what White/Yellow are you drinking right now?

by mganz42 » Feb 24th, '15, 12:13

ethan wrote:mganz42's ? for finding a good silver needle white tea leads me to ask a ? also.

"Do teachatters think "silver needle" is a useful term?
For me I think the operative term is not "silver needle" but rather "good silver needle" :lol:
There may be many "silver needle" teas out there but I'm hoping to weed out the fake ones by turning to other people who may have good recommendations.
I personally do think that silver needle tea, when purchased wisely, has a unique, recognizable flavor profile compared to other white teas. And I have not found a white tea that I liked that was not a silver needle. :lol: And these teas have never contained leaves that did not look like little fuzzy crescent moons.
Unless you count bi luo chun as a white tea, then, yum. And that's a completely different leaf shape.
I think the problem with white teas other than silver needle is that every time I've tried to buy it (like bai mu dan) I've ended up with these horrible, brittle leaves that look and taste like the vendor just gathered dead leaves from the forest floor. I'm looking for a buttery, sweet taste that doesn't make me want to gag...

Feb 25th, '15, 05:10
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Re: Official what White/Yellow are you drinking right now?

by ethan » Feb 25th, '15, 05:10

mganz42, If memory serves me well, the white tea I enjoyed had soft fuzzy leaves. I have no memory of their shape.
Soft & fuzzy may be words that don't sell as well as silver needle sells. In April I will be ordering samples of white tea. I'll post how they are.

Feb 25th, '15, 08:13
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Re: Official what White/Yellow are you drinking right now?

by Puerlife » Feb 25th, '15, 08:13

I tried this today:
http://wildteaqi.com/store/#!/Moonlight ... ry=3365119
The owner of this company treated about seven people, including me, to this during a two-hour session. The plan was to start with this and then continue on to a couple of other teas but this one was all we needed, yielding well in excess of 20 infusions. The initial taste and aroma was peaches and cream but it kept changing in subtle ways and gave lots of tongue sensation as well. It's a subtle tea and amply rewards giving one's full attention to it. The qi was unlike that of any tea I've ever had. As soon as everyone had drunk a couple of tiny cups our talkative group suddenly got quiet, with everyone just happy to quietly take in feeling. If I'd had the time I probably could have fallen asleep, but instead we went and played with our qi in a nice qi gong session. The photo on the website fails to capture how beatiful and hairy these single buds are.

Feb 25th, '15, 12:14
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Re: Official what White/Yellow are you drinking right now?

by mganz42 » Feb 25th, '15, 12:14

Hey... their website sells the tea as loose leaves and in a chocolate bar shape! Weren't people looking for that in another topic?

Feb 25th, '15, 20:45
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Re: Official what White/Yellow are you drinking right now?

by Puerlife » Feb 25th, '15, 20:45

mganz42 wrote:Hey... their website sells the tea as loose leaves and in a chocolate bar shape! Weren't people looking for that in another topic?
I don't know, I haven't been following any white tea topics, but he had both with him and he gong fu'd the loose buds for us.

Feb 26th, '15, 06:30
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Re: Official what White/Yellow are you drinking right now?

by ethan » Feb 26th, '15, 06:30

Sounds delicious, Puerlife. I never got qi from white tea but never had > that several cups in one session.

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Apr 20th, '15, 07:45
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Re: Official what White/Yellow are you drinking right now?

by Rui » Apr 20th, '15, 07:45

Malawi Bvumbwe Peony White Tea from What-Cha. It is really a yummy almost no astringency tea! :D

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May 8th, '15, 05:07
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Re: Official what White/Yellow are you drinking right now?

by john.b » May 8th, '15, 05:07

I'm just now drinking a bai mu dan, a relatively generic version of it, not much for grower pedigree, from a "local" tea shop in Pattaya, Thailand (I'm in Bangkok).

I tried a tea sold as a yellow tea not so long ago, from Korea, but after a good bit of reading up yellow tea production in China and Korea are possibly different (or maybe not so much; hard to get to that final level of processing details, the bit about what the extra heaping or wet piling step is all about).

Really none of the categories of Korean tea seemed well suited to match Chinese tea types, so I ended up reading articles and blog posts a couple times to get through matching some terms and production techniques. I'd need to try a couple decent Chinese yellow teas to see how similar they really were. In the end about those teas (I also tried a black tea version, much as one can say that) interesting, but I wasn't an immediate convert, so a bit of a downer after paying eye-watering full retail for them.

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Re: Official what White/Yellow are you drinking right now?

by debunix » May 8th, '15, 10:53

In my drinking experience (only a handful of teas from different sources), the 'yellow' or balhyocha Korean teas have been very similar to a very highly oxidized chinese oolong: fruity, rich, deep. They have not been at all like the best of the Chinese yellow teas I've gotten, which have been like a green tea that was somehow extra rich and floral.

I've only encountered Balhyocha-like fruitiness in a few teas from Taiwan, including some called 'brandy' oolongs.

May 8th, '15, 18:41
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Re: Official what White/Yellow are you drinking right now?

by ethan » May 8th, '15, 18:41

john.b I am guessing you were at Tea-Village. From them I drink a milk oolong a couple of times a week & loved a bai hao. From them I also use a Chinese gaiwan (medium-sized) that I like. I appreciate their patience. I tried many teas there. The bai hao was relatively expensive; so, I only bought a little. Later I felt guilty & bought the oolong & some Thai green tea which actually worked out well. I can enjoy them if I don't have them too often. If you make up to Chiangmai you can get some really good pu from Steve, an American from Oregon.

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Re: Official what White/Yellow are you drinking right now?

by john.b » May 11th, '15, 04:13

That's right, Tea Village. I haven't tried the Bai Hao yet but I did get some. They are really nice. They kept giving me samples last visit so I brought them a number of different tea samples (strange, right, backwards) and of course they gave me more, and I had already bought some teas.

I think I know the Steve you talked of, not really personally, but I've spoken with a Steve in Chiang Mai about tea, and pu'er, and I've heard he went on to selling it. Seems strange even saying that much about a third person here, the way people are online, even though I've not really said anything.

The yellow and black teas I bought in Korea last month were so expensive anything they were selling would seem really inexpensive in comparison ($30 to $40 for 40 grams or so; nothing astronomical as some are but getting up there). I try to keep the tea-habit expense in check because it drives my wife crazy, even though the numbers don't seem to add up, to me, since that's only the second time I've went to that upper side of average of market pricing for teas. Due to writing a blog about teas vendors sending samples comes up sometimes but my wife doesn't seem to really appreciate that.

May 14th, '15, 10:16

Re: Official what White/Yellow are you drinking right now?

by InTeaItrust » May 14th, '15, 10:16

I'm currently drinking Wegman's white tea. Its a very underrated tea. :D

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Jul 16th, '15, 05:12
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Re: Official what White/Yellow are you drinking right now?

by Rui » Jul 16th, '15, 05:12

Malawi Bvumbwe Peony White tea from What-Cha in UK. Quite a sweet and yummy tea.

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