The ratio that matters
The ratio that matters for white tea is about one gram to 50 millilitres for a Western brew, and one gram to 20 for gongfu. That is 3 grams in a 150 millilitre cup, or 5 grams in a 100 millilitre gaiwan.
White tea is bulky and light, especially Silver Needle, so a spoonful weighs far less than a spoonful of a rolled oolong. This is the category where volume measuring goes most wrong.
A compressed white tea behaves differently again, because broken cake includes dust and small fragments that extract much faster than whole leaf. If you are brewing from a cake you have broken up, use slightly less than you would for loose leaf.
Aged white tea can take a heavier ratio than young white tea. A cake with ten years on it has lost some of its bite and benefits from more leaf and hotter water, while a fresh Silver Needle turns coarse under the same treatment.
Too little leaf gives you a cup that smells pleasant and tastes like almost nothing. White tea’s character is quiet to begin with, and an under-dosed cup disappears entirely.
Too much leaf is more forgiving here than with green tea, because white tea has less catechin to extract. The failure is a thick, slightly flat cup rather than a bitter one, and it is easy to correct on the next steep.
Time by the clock
Time by the clock for white tea runs longer than for green: two to three minutes for a Western brew, and 30 to 45 seconds for the first gongfu infusion.
Silver Needle needs the longest time of the white teas, because the buds are dense and slow to hydrate. Shoumei, with more open leaf and stem, gives up its flavour faster and can turn coarse if you treat it the same way.
Because white tea is usually brewed hotter than green, at 85 to 90 degrees, it also extracts faster than the clock suggests. The two variables move together, and a recipe from a green tea will not transfer.
For multiple infusions, add 20 to 30 seconds each time. White tea gives three to five decent infusions, and compressed material often gives more.
Unlike green tea, white tea does not punish you immediately for over-steeping. What you get instead is a loss of the delicate top note, and a cup that tastes generically sweet rather than distinctly of that tea.
The useful signal is the liquor colour rather than the clock. A pale gold means it is ready. Once it moves to deep amber, the delicate notes are already gone.
A simple starting recipe
A simple starting recipe: 3 grams of leaf, 150 millilitres of water at 88 degrees, steeped for two and a half minutes. Strain completely, then taste before adjusting.
For Silver Needle, push to three minutes and 90 degrees. For Shoumei or Gongmei, pull back to two minutes and 85 degrees, because the more open leaf extracts faster and turns coarse sooner.
For an aged cake, go hotter and heavier: 5 grams in 100 millilitres at 95 degrees, 30 seconds for the first steep, then add 15 seconds per steep. Aged white responds well to near-boiling water in a way young white does not.
If the cup is thin, add leaf. If it is flat and slightly sour, the water was too hot for a young tea, so drop to 82 degrees rather than shortening the time.
One thing worth doing: give compressed white tea a very quick rinse. Five seconds of hot water, discarded, wakes the leaf up and washes off the dust from breaking the cake. It costs you almost nothing.
And avoid the common shortcut of brewing white tea at a full boil. It works for dark tea and it ruins this one, and the damage shows up as a cooked, flat sweetness with no top note.
It is worth saying that white tea rewards patience more than precision. Get the temperature roughly right, use enough leaf, and the window for a good cup is wider than most guides suggest.
Use enough leaf and keep the water below boiling, and the rest tends to look after itself.