Making White Tea: Insights from a Tea Maker

White tea should be relatively difficult to make well. According to my strict view, most white tea on the market is not suitable for immediate drinking. Some radicals even reject the white tea category altogether, and they have their reasons.

I started making white tea in 2017 and have produced over ten tons since then. I've made high-end and low-end versions, and among the four major tea types (raw, ripe, red, white), white tea has almost no inventory, which seems successful from a market perspective.

However, writing articles is like life; the most feared word is 'however,' but it is inevitable and even most worth recording.

However, I still dare not make white tea easily. I try to make white tea thoroughly processed, but inevitably encounter various weather conditions that can cause problems.

What is the problem?

Cold and cool nature!

1. Tea is an art of fire.

From fresh leaves to drinkable tea, fire is involved in every step. Tea is an art of fire. Firing requires fire, drying requires fire (baking or sun-drying), and brewing requires fire (boiling water). The life of tea is a life of playing with fire.

For raw tea (green tea), I can make it very thoroughly processed.

I have a large number of finished tea products for experiments and comparative tasting. If you want to know more, please visit my article "Talking About Tea on Paper: Making Thoroughly Processed Tea - Making 'Healthy Tea' That Can Be Drunk."

During the firing stage of raw tea, fire participates for a relatively long time, with high temperatures for over ten or even twenty minutes, providing an opportunity to remove the cold nature of fresh leaves.

But here comes that damn 'but.'

However, during the production of white tea, there is no high-temperature involvement. If the drying stage uses baking, some remedy can be applied, but our white tea is sun-dried. How to remedy?

Without a step like pan-firing for raw tea, making white tea is actually quite difficult.

I have seen many tea farmers making white tea by first withering indoors for 1-2 days, then directly sun-drying. Some farmers also pile the white tea (or seal it in bags) to sweat before sun-drying. This kind of white tea has a harsh liquor and doesn't quench thirst, but it is very fresh and sweet. Tea enthusiasts who are not sensitive to their bodies might actually like it. However, long-term consumption of such tea can cause significant harm to the body. For example, young couples who make this tea and drink it long-term may find pregnancy a luxury.

2. Removing 'greenness' is the main purpose of primary processing.

There are many reasons for the cold nature of tea, which the tea industry collectively calls 'greenness.' The process of making tea is a process of 'removing greenness.'

Fresh leaves begin to lose greenness from the moment they are picked. The primary processing facility is filled with the smell of greenness.

Here, I want to explain tea making based on my understanding. Forget the jargon, ignore the science peddlers, especially those who claim to have read many books; they are all about taking things at face value and find it hard to truly understand tea. Even AI, with all the books, needs extensive training to understand, let alone human effort!

There are dozens of processes in primary tea processing. The ones I commonly use are: withering (spreading), sun-drying, pan-firing, rolling, shaking, and sun-drying.

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Sun-drying fresh leaves for white tea (guess how much white tea I made that day?)

The main purpose of all these processes is to remove greenness!

Withering actually causes a lot of greenness to dissipate. Standing beside the withering trough, you smell a strong green odor. Of course, withering also softens the leaves, making them less prone to damage in subsequent steps. But using room temperature to remove greenness is the main purpose of withering.

Sun-drying is a common action during the withering of fresh leaves, especially for white tea. It is a necessary action for yang fire to participate in removing greenness. The main purpose of sun-drying without damaging the leaves is to remove greenness.

Pan-firing, commonly known as stir-frying tea, besides causing rapid moisture loss, the involvement of fire and high temperature quickly removes a large amount of greenness. That is the main purpose of pan-firing; otherwise, one could skip pan-firing and go directly to drying.

Rolling: Tea masters often say this breaks cell walls and makes the flavor easier to extract. I've researched it but haven't fully understood. However, I know that rolling has two main purposes: one is to continue removing greenness, and the other is to shape the tea.

The purpose of shaking is even simpler: when fresh leaves can no longer lose greenness, you shake them to revive them and continue the process. Of course, shaking also removes a lot of greenness.

Sun-drying is to preserve the results of greenness removal, making the tea dry and suitable for storage and drinking. Of course, sun-drying itself continues the removal of greenness. Some experienced masters, before the tea is completely dry, will pile the tea to use the sun and the last bit of moisture to remove greenness more thoroughly.

Greenness is the obstacle to making good tea; removing greenness is everywhere.

For the raw tea I make every spring, before pressing into cakes, I try to let the dry rough tea rest for a longer period. This action is called 'sweating.'

When selling tea, freshly pressed cakes need to be stored for a few months before selling. Some people even wait years, which I think is also related to removing greenness. If you smell a freshly pressed raw tea cake, it has a grassy aroma, which improves significantly after a few months.

Making tea is the process of removing greenness, but the enemy of removing greenness is moisture. Once fresh leaves dry out, it's hard to remove greenness. Based on this principle, use your imagination, and you can make good tea. For example, I often think about creating a high-temperature, high-humidity environment for withering so that fresh leaves don't dry too quickly but can quickly lose greenness. Of course, I haven't had the chance to experiment due to various distractions. I don't know when my conditions will improve... I'll wait for your experiments.

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Sun-drying greens

3. Removing greenness in white tea?

By properly using withering, sun-drying, shaking, and sun-drying, it is possible to make white tea less cold in nature. However, weather is unpredictable and uncontrollable. There aren't always sunny days during processing, and I often encounter problems.

Many people make white tea even more casually: just dry it, and it's ready to drink...

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Warming the tea by the fire on a cold day

4. More discussion and exchange

I will continue to pay attention to white tea production. When conditions improve, I will experimentally invest in a sunroom or other mechanical equipment, which may help make better white tea.

Everyone is welcome to come and discuss and exchange ideas.

This is the fortieth article in my "Talking About Tea on Paper" series. Both text and images are original. Click to read more articles in the "Talking About Tea on Paper" series.