Bai Lu, or perhaps by another name ‘Bai Mu Dan’ translates to ‘White Peony’

White tea is a specialty of Fujian, China; although teas like Bai Mu Dan are made all over the world. This category of tea was one of the hardest for me to get into because I came to tea from a background that desires a lot of upfront flavor. Yunnan (specifically Lincang city) heralded the first white tea I actually enjoyed and persuaded me to tolerate white tea as a style until these days where I’ve grown quite fond of it.

This is a white tea from Yunnan, an area of China famous for Pu’Erh tea. Raw Pu’Erh and White tea have a tremendous amount in common. Lincang is the area of provenance for this tea, and an area I’ve been buying from since I started this company in 2016. The processing of a white tea is relatively straightforward and its cost is based on the time farmers spent picking the buds/leaf, the terroir of the tea plantation and subsequent quality of the tea bushes, and finally by things like historical fame. In the case of ‘Mu Dan’ tea (which is a picking criteria) historical fame and quality of the overall area are the major factors which contribute to cost. Yunnan for various reasons is one of the least expensive areas of China to purchase tea from with the exception of very specific, very high end Pu’Erh tea.

Looking at the over all quality of white tea, sub-classes are arranged by the type of leaf material picked from the bush. Silver Needle (Yin Zhen), White Peony (Mu Dan), Gong Mei, and Shou Mei. There are some producers that don’t pick a silver needle and instead focus on just making a high end Mu Dan, this producer does just this (sort of). This tea consists of the silver needle and the first two leaves. It sounds negative.. ish to say it this way but the farmers in Yunnan have their style of tea, a lazy style.. They cant be bothered to pick ‘silver needles’ and the like, because it’s not part of their tradition, is truthfully a lot of work, and they don’t get paid a lot for tea anyway compared to elsewhere in China. The ‘why bother?’ attitude gives Yunnan tea a certain rustic charm.

In the quality spectrum Mu Dan tea is the ‘2nd level’ of white tea classification and generally costs much less than silver needles. Silver Needles aka Yin Zhen is the highest classification of quality and consists of only unopened buds of the tea leaf, I sell a silver needle tea too but a lot of white tea drinkers prefer a Mu Dan tea to a silver needle tea due to the increase of flavor that the slightly more mature leaf gives to the final product compared to just being the buds. This Mu Dan has a lot more flavor than the other one I carry but is arguably much less ‘standard’, and much less ‘authentic’.

A Yunnan ‘Mu Dan’ picking using var. Assamica. Also known as Bai Lu

Yunnan is China’s claim to the land which is ‘origin of tea’ for the world. A stretch of land joined with Myanmar, Northern Thailand, Northern Vietnam, Laos, Nepal, and Northern India. The tea bushes in Yunnan are of a variety that is not seen in many other places except those countries mentioned above, and not in the rest of China. The ‘Chinese bush’ (var. Sinensis) conquered the world while the ‘Indian bush’ (var. Assamica) remained home in the heartland. They’re as different as Coffea Robusta and Coffea Arabica; Vitis Vinifera and Vitis Labrusca. This tea is made from the Assamica variety of the tea bush, which is an exciting comparison to make with the var. Sinensis Bai Mu Dan that I sell as well (the one from Fujian)

With a good white tea, you really get to experience the natural flavor of the tea bush without adulteration but they’re not all created equal. Although the processing of white tea is simple, it’s due to that simplicity that within the few steps from start to finish there’s a lot of variation. The process basically involves picking the buds and first leaf together, withering them to a low moisture content (10~15%), and finally drying them over a low heat. In Yunnan the sun is used in as many of these processes as possible, and this is a major reason why the teas taste as exotic as they do. As the leaf withers, cellulose barriers within it break down and chemicals within the bud which previously had no way to contact each other start to mingle and create new aromatic compounds and flavors. For the farmer, knowing how far to take this process before drying i out is critical to the potential of the teas fragrance. The sun works magic in the process too thanks to the UV rays causing damage in ways that most teas aren’t exposed to.

Drying the leaf afterwards is just as important because now the farmer has to bring the moisture down to <6% using charcoal heat without allowing smoke or buildup of excess heat to damage what they’ve created in the withering process.

Speaking to caffeine and health benefits, well — there’s a lot of both. It’s about as ‘raw’ as you’re going to get tea, nothing has been ‘hurt’ by high temperatures, and the first picking of the year is full of the stored energy the bush kept to live through winter. The enzymes which would change the ‘white’ leaf to ‘black’ are still active but require humidity to continue to transform, which the dried tea no longer has. If the tea is stored in a humid area it will ‘age’ as Pu’Erh tea and wine does, over decades developing a special level of richness. Caffeine is particularly high in the young parts of the tea bush — and this teas material is the absolute youngest. If you want to get ‘tea drunk’ white tea in general is very good for that.

As a final note: I am also selling 2 other white teas this year, both from the same farm. A silver needle and another Mu Dan. The major differences between the 2 Mu Dans would be the age of the bushes, ecology, and cultivar. The Yunnan tea is the type of tea bush native to the heartland of tea (Camellia Sinensis var. Assamica) while this one is Camellia Sinensis var. Sinensis. Yunnan’s environment assures a long life to tea bushes if left undisturbed by humans; the teas that grow in mono-culture tea plantations are very ‘artificial’ by comparison. All are great teas, very different though. The Yunnan tea has more of a fruitiness to it, easily comparable to a young sheng pu’erh. The Fujian white teas are a lot more classic of the style, delicate, and ‘aristocratic’.