What is White Tea?

Essentially a white is like a very delicate green. Whites undergo the least processing of any kind of tea. They are made from young leaves that are just simply dried.

-- Randy (if replying by e-mail, remove SPAMFREE from my address)

While intrepidly exploring rec.food.drink.tea, RJP rolled initiative and posted the following:

And, as such, are even more sensitive to heat. My Peony Blanc gets steeped at a lower temp than my greens and for about twice as long. It is, however, a very soothing final product and makes an absolutely WONDERFUL iced tea on a hot summer day.

It's been my understanding that white tea is basically a green tea with white down (fuzz) on the leaves.

I've heard it said that white tea has a mildly depressant quality, more than being a stimulant.

White teas tend to have a lighter taste than green teas, which in turn tend to be lighter than oolongs or blacks.

You should read the excellent FAQ for this group

This is not the tea FAQ's home page, but contains a copy of the FAQ, along with many other FAQs and is an excellent site worth knowing about. It has a link to the homepage, by Chistopher Roberson's, which has other useful tea links.

Cheers,

- Joel

More than that - it is not green tea.

It does not have very much caffeine in it at all - I don't know about it having depressant qualities, though.

White tea tends to have a very complex taste, I wouldn't say it is weaker r stronger than the other teas - really it is just different.

I once forgot about some white tea I had steeping - and it steepend for about 10 minutes - and as I drank it it hardly had any bitterness, but was quite strong!

If you can get some - enjoy it!

This is a MYTH! There is nothing in the way the other kinds of tea are processed that could *introduce* caffeine. If anything, it might break it down, but that doesn't happen either.

Holy Mountain Trading Company has an analysis of some of their teas, and you'll see the white tea is right up there for caffeine content.

Cheers,

- Joel

Thanks for all the help and explanations, everyone!

Giselle (adding white tea to my next tea shopping list)

quality, more

tea are

might break

I guess that's true enough, but white tea is usually made from buds, and it is possible that the caffeine content in buds is lower than in leaves.

I just looked it up - she is right - caffeine levels in tea is roughly the same, though actual levels will depend upon steeping time.

No, it's *sometimes* made from buds. Silver Needles/Yinzhen yes, White Peony/Bai Mudan/Pai Mutan no, Shou Mei no, etc. Some greens, by the way, are bud-only.

I don't think so, based on the small collection of numbers on the Holy Mtn caffeine content page.

/Lew