Brewing White Tea... Help!

[Patrick A]

Hi,
I have a silly question, but I am drinking alot of White tea, all different, and have a question regarding brewing. It appears that my white teas are much darker when brewed than I guess they are supposed to be. I brew my tea for 2-3 minutes, yet I continually see that my "White" tea appears as dark as my "Black" teas. Is this normal ? I thought white teas should be very very light in color when brewed.

Thanks,

Patrick

[Space Samurai]

It depends a bit on what kind of white tea you are using, but in my experience what tea can be dark. The terms white and black don't refer to the color of the liquor but the color of the leaves.

As long as it tastes good, as long as you like it, it should be fine.

[Wesli]

White tea can become fairly dark. Especially ones that aren't 100% bud. If you can, take a picture of this tea you think is becoming overly dark, and I'll do my best to help you out.

[Chip]

White tea is strange brew...white peony, aka bai mudan (and several other spellings) often gets darker when just sitting in my cup. White Peony and similar whites can brew darker than say silver needles that should never brew up dark.

[Salsero]

T-Ching had a post just today that was sort of related to this issue. Since I know hardly anything about white teas, I found it pretty interesting and it convinced me that I know even less than I thought I did!

http://www.tching.com/index.php/2008/02 ... ification/