Bai Mudan vs Bai Hao Yin Zhen

[Tea&Whisky]

Hello all. I'm fairly new to tea and this is my first post here.

Most of my experience so far has been with Japanese green, oolong and western blends of black tea, along with a few others. Just recently I decided to try white tea, specifically the two mentioned above. So I ordered a sample of each from Verdant Tea. (first time I've used them)
Each tea came in a 5g single serve package.

I tried the Yin Zhen first. My first impression was that it was ok, but there was something about it that stopped me from liking it immediately. It had a very pale yellow cup; the smell was floral, sweet, and very slightly vegetal; and it had a sweet, floral taste, with very subtle fruity and vegetal notes. After a few cups, I realized what I didn't like. It was almost overbearingly sweet, and kinda viscous; almost like honey water or a very fluid syrup. And the taste kinda lingered after each cup so that it compounded with each additional cup. The sweetness really overpowered everything else. I think I had four cups total. Not sure how many steeps white tea is typically good for, but I think if I continued long enough I would've eventually gagged.

By comparison, I tried the Bai Mudan a few days later and it was pretty similar, but perfectly balanced. It also had some very slight spicy notes in the taste. Needless to say, at this point I'm ready to add White Peony to my cabinet and leave move on from Silver Needle.

I was just wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience and what your preferences are when it comes to white tea.


By the way, because I had no prior experience with white tea, I just followed the gongfu instructions on the store's site. If you do it differently, I'd like to know.

For Bai Mudan: 5g tea to 6oz water steeped at 80 deg for 6s initially, with 3s added to each additional steeping.
For Bai Hao Yin Zhen: Same thing, but 10s for the first steeping.


Thanks

[luchayi]

Hello all. I'm fairly new to tea and this is my first post here.

Most of my experience so far has been with Japanese green, oolong and western blends of black tea, along with a few others. Just recently I decided to try white tea, specifically the two mentioned above. So I ordered a sample of each from Verdant Tea. (first time I've used them)
Each tea came in a 5g single serve package.

I tried the Yin Zhen first. My first impression was that it was ok, but there was something about it that stopped me from liking it immediately. It had a very pale yellow cup; the smell was floral, sweet, and very slightly vegetal; and it had a sweet, floral taste, with very subtle fruity and vegetal notes. After a few cups, I realized what I didn't like. It was almost overbearingly sweet, and kinda viscous; almost like honey water or a very fluid syrup. And the taste kinda lingered after each cup so that it compounded with each additional cup. The sweetness really overpowered everything else. I think I had four cups total. Not sure how many steeps white tea is typically good for, but I think if I continued long enough I would've eventually gagged.

By comparison, I tried the Bai Mudan a few days later and it was pretty similar, but perfectly balanced. It also had some very slight spicy notes in the taste. Needless to say, at this point I'm ready to add White Peony to my cabinet and leave move on from Silver Needle.

I was just wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience and what your preferences are when it comes to white tea.


By the way, because I had no prior experience with white tea, I just followed the gongfu instructions on the store's site. If you do it differently, I'd like to know.

For Bai Mudan: 5g tea to 6oz water steeped at 80 deg for 6s initially, with 3s added to each additional steeping.
For Bai Hao Yin Zhen: Same thing, but 10s for the first steeping.


Thanks

Every tea shop has different teas. In my opinion one of the best area in fuding where to grow white tea is taimushan. Is not easy to find a good yin zhen perfect to drink during the same year of the production because not rarely the acid note is too strong in my opinion. So it's better to buy it aged 1 year...so the acid note is perfect balanced with the hay one.
Bai mu dan has also some leaves so it's more fruity. It's just a different kind of tea. Yin zhen is more delicate and sweet... if you let it age some years the white teas, the fruity note become stronger and Yin Zhen will develope chocolate fragrance... but if you have a really good quality yin zhen in my opinion is better drink it in 1 or 2 years.

[zesk]

I was told by the tea shop I frequent Yin Zhen being buds takes longer to develop. For exampls shou mei or bai mudan produced in the same year would mature faster. Usually people also drink white tea to reduce heatiness. For other kinds maybe after 3 years their medicinal values show. But for yin zhen it might take longer.

[kukicha]

That's really strange, I thought the complete opposite of their teas - i loved their silver needle but wasn't a fan of their bai mudan! Just goes to show how different tastes can be, eh?
When i brewed their silver needle I did it in a wider vessel with a glaze, and used purified water through a brita filter.
I did it with slightly hotter water, I believe i brought it to around 190 degrees celsius?

Doing it as such resulted in no real grassy flavor, but an intense and satisfying burst of custard, a hint of celery, and a fresh vanilla aftertaste.

I did bai mudan relatively the same way and resulted in a flavor much like what you described as well.