Anji Bai Cha Green Tea

Anji Bai Cha is a green tea from Anji in Zhejiang, made from a cultivar whose spring shoots come out pale jade-white. It tastes of sweet pea, pine nut, flowers and a creamy sweetness. Despite the name, it is a green tea. Brewed in a glass teapot at 78°C.

Origin & Story

The name says white tea, but this is a green tea. Anji Bai Cha, from Anji County in the hills of northern Zhejiang, comes from a tea cultivar that is sensitive to temperature: in the cool days of early spring its new shoots come out pale, a jade-white, and as the weather warms the leaves turn green again. The tea is picked while the leaves are still pale, and the season is short. The processed leaves are long and narrow, yellow in color, with a distinctive fold along the length of each one.

The cultivar was found, lost and found again. Wild trees with white shoots were reportedly noticed in Anji as early as 1930, and in 1982 a tree more than 100 years old turned up on a mountainside. Technicians at the Anji County forestry institute took cuttings and bred it, which is how the cultivar spread.

The young pale leaves are unusually rich in amino acids, and in the cup that shows as a brothy, savory sweetness: sweet pea, pine nut, a floral hint and a creamy finish.

Brew gently, with water at about 75 to 80°C, 3 g of leaf for 240 ml, and short steeps of a minute to a minute and a half, which is all the delicate shoots need.

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