The white tea cake Lao Bai Cha 2015 is made of leaves harvested and aged in the Fuding area. Usually during a talk around old teas it’s easier to hear about puer rather than white teas but also these last ones have a significant change in the flavor profile through the time. Instead of the Yunnan products, however, the white tea normally aged in the loose leaf status and it pressed into a cake only few months before being sell. This practice is adopted in order to ensure a uniform maturation of the product that, otherwise, turns into a cake made of more aged material on the edges and a not developed leaves in the inner part of the disc. The thin and small leaves of this kind of tea, in fact, allow less air to pass through its compressed shape originating areas with different maturation speeds. This 2015 product of us, following the principles of the loose leaf aging, already shows all its leaves with an homogeneous brown color interrupted only by some pale silver buds.
The infuse of these aged leaves from Fuding starts to spread its taste on the palate and the side of the mouth revealing some woody flavors developed by the oxidation through the time. Besides the maturation there are still some younger tastes in the vegetal profile of the tea. These ones, in particular, can resemble to some mountain herbs or roots with a pungent character. After a while the tasting experience of this tea begins to reveal the intense sweetness which is capable of on the palate. In particular, here, there is a sugar cane aspect well supported by a slight mineral presence. In the end the body of liquor maintain also a full-bodied aspect without any dryness but, instead, it gives a slightly humid sensation in the mouth.
Place of origin
Fuding, Fujian – China
Production
The leaves after the harvest whiter under the sunlight for a while before going into the next step where they are left to dry naturally or helped with hot air indoor. The few phases of this tea processing wants to cause a really slow loss of water from the leaves in order to maintain a low level of oxidation. This particularly cured dehydration doesn’t effect too much the vegetal flavors but allow the product to gain more structure and body. Once dried the leaves are sorted and then aged until the producer’s decision of put they up for sale. The good matured product can now be pressed into cakes and put on the market.
Preparation
We invite you to brew this tea in the traditional Chinese style (gong fu cha) in order to extract more from your leaves. Following this preparation you could use 5.5 grams of leaves (about 3 teaspoons) in a gaiwan of 100 ml so you can obtains more infusions with different flavors. After a brief rinse of the leaves in a 85°C water you can go with a first infusion of 10 seconds and, after that, at the same water temperature, you can do multiple infusion adding 10 seconds every steeping time (10 – 20 – 30…)
These leaves could be steep about 7 times.
To prepare the tea in the western style we suggest 3 grams of leaves (about 2 teaspoons) in a 150 ml cup with 85°C water for a steeping time of one minute and an half.
The tea could be filtered if you want to avoid some little piece of the leaves during the tasting time and also the steeping time we recommend here could be modify on your personal preferences.
We recommend you to store this tea in a dry and cool place avoiding the direct sun light on the leaves.