Shou Mei (Longevity Eyebrow)
Organic White Tea 2024
A full-flavored spring white tea as complex as it is affordable. Mature leaves and occasional buds infuse with herbaceous complexity and uncharacteristic darker notes reminiscent of black tea. A very affordable organic white tea with bold flavor that does well hot or iced.
- Tea Origin
- Fuding City, Fujian Province, China
- Tea Bush
- Dabai (Big White), Dahao (Big Hair)
- Tea Maker
- Lin Xingxiong
- Harvest Time
- Mid-April
- Plucking Standard
- One bud, two leaves
Shou Mei brews up an orange colored infusion with a bright and fruit-like character that leaves no heaviness on your pallet. As an economic choice in white tea, it is ideal as refreshment after heavy meal or to quench your thirst on a hot day.
It seems only natural that white tea is made in Southern China, a place known for its extraordinary food culture. The heat and richness of an indulgent meal finds an ideal mate in cooling and refreshing white tea. In restaurants throughout the Southern provinces you’ll find pots of Shou Mei are close at hand.
This tea commonly appears on the market in the form of brown colored and broken leaves- evidence that the white tea has been dried to hot and too fast. This need not be the case! By tea producer standards, our Shou Mei belongs to the first grade of quality. Many of its dry leaves have retained their light green color and wholeness. Silvery white tea buds are also present with an average plucking of one bud with two or three leaves. This is very rare for Shou Mei. The attention to quality in manufacture affords this Shou Mei the full body you’d expect from a coarser tea without compromising the fresh aroma found in higher grades of other white teas.
White Tea
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.
No chemical fertilizer, pesticide, or herbicide was used in the production of this tea. Click here to read more about our promise to fair trade and the environment.
