Old-Growth-Wild White Teas - White Peony (1st Grade)

First Grade White Peony – harvested on 3^rd April 2020

The first grade of White Peony is made up with a very high proportion of downy silver buds with half opened leaves – a bud and a leaf or a bud and two slight opened leaves are selected. The aroma of dry leaves has dry hay and light dry wood notes, showing rich flora and bush aroma on the wet leave after the first brew. The first infusions are light with notes of sweet hay on the top and light earthy character on the base, becoming slight stronger with sweet apricot with subsequent infusions, long lasting aftertaste.  As the tea contain high proportion of downy silver buds, it will have some elegant characters just like the Silver Needle.

Like our other white teas, this Silver Needle White Teas is also produced by Master Ye Fang Yang, one of China’s foremost experts in white tea production. Master Ye has always believed in organic farming method, and he believes that white tea should reflect the local terroir and ecosystem on which it is grown but also the purities of tea. Apart from managing his existing organic tea gardens, in the past decade, Master Ye has also been interested in searching deserted tea gardens and wild tea trees in the local mountain regions. The mountain of Bai Ma Gang was his latest finding in 2014, a large, deserted tea garden with many wild-grown tea bushes located in the centre of the Bai Ma Gang area. Since then, Master Ye has been taken over of the area and cleared out the weeds and bushes, but without interfering the wild tea bushes. 

When Juyan was first introduced the teas from this tea garden, she loved each grade. They are all phenomenally delicious with various notes of hay, stone fruit, forest characters and wild roots. Instead of only choosing one tea, Juyan bought the top three grades to show how a white tea could develop such individual character with the different harvesting time - check out theOld-Growth-Wild Silver Needle andOld-Growth-Wild White Peony (2nd Grade). They are wonderful teas for brewing in a big cup or gong fu brewing and enjoy them anytime in the day.

ORIGIN