White Tea Buying Guide

Daily white tea and collected white tea are different buys. Fresh cup versus aged value.

White tea is an easy gift because it looks like nothing else. Silver Needle buds are pale, downy and obviously something special.

The trap with white tea is age, and it runs in both directions. New white tea is sold as aged, and genuinely aged white tea is sold as something it is not.

The first decision with white tea is whether you want to drink it now or keep it, because those are two different purchases.

In a shop you can see the down on the buds, which is the main grade marker for Silver Needle , and no photograph shows it well.

Young white is cheap and good. A decent Silver Needle costs a fraction of what a comparable green costs, and it keeps better.