EU Certificated Chinese loose tea silver needle White Tea chinese tea gift

Silver Needle is one of the rarest and most spectacular teas. This needle shaped white tea is mainly produced in Fujian, China, which is famous for the outstanding quality of their white tea. The reason for the name, “Silver Needles”, is quite apparent as with one glance at the buds; the prominence of the delicate white hairs on the buds is quite striking. During early Spring, each bud is carefully plucked from the Da-bai cultivar (Da-bai cha-shu). White teas differed from green teas in that their processing does not incorporate any steaming or pan-firing.

The sweetest of the white teas, Silver Needle is made up of only buds from the tea bush. Meticulously separated from the stem, the buds are fanned on to a single layer and dried naturally until 90% of their moisture is removed. The drying process is then completed indoors when the tea is roasted over charcoal. During the roast, the tea is separated from the charcoal by bamboo trays lined with paper. The very low temperature drying of this tea is designed to preserve the white color of its buds. Too high of a temperature will make the buds yellow.

Unlike green tea, white tea is never fired or steamed to kill the enzymatic action that causes oxidation. Instead, oxidation of the leaves is prevented by their lack of moisture. The withering process is very long and gradual, thus slight oxidation of the leaves (or buds) will naturally occur. With this slight amount of oxidation, white tea’s color is typically not as bright or green as you would expect from a green tea.