Fuding Silver Needle White Tea

Silver Needle, or Baihao Yinzhen, is white tea made only from unopened buds covered in fine white down, withered and dried with no rolling or firing. The cup is pale, sweet and delicate, with fresh hay, honeydew melon and wildflowers. Brewed gently at 80°C.

Origin & Story

Only the bud

Silver Needle is the strictest tea to pick. Only the unopened bud at the tip of each shoot goes in the basket, with no leaves at all. The buds are plump and covered in fine white hairs that give the dry tea its silver look and its name: baihao yinzhen, white-haired silver needle. Pickers work in early spring, mostly from late March into early April, and spring tea is about half of a year's white tea. Makers prefer to pick on dry, sunny mornings, once the dew is gone.

Two counties, two styles

The tea comes from northeastern Fujian, and two counties make most of it. Fuding, near the coast, uses the Fuding Da Bai cultivar, the big white, and its big-bud cousin Fuding Da Hao. Zhenghe, inland, uses its own Zhenghe Da Bai. Fuding Silver Needle is usually lighter, with a shorter oxidation, while Zhenghe tea tends to be darker and fuller. The mother tree of the Fuding cultivar is said to grow in a cave on Taimu Mountain above Fuding.

Silver Needle is said to have been first made there in the early years of the Jiaqing reign, around 1796, and exports began in 1891. Fuding white tea has been a protected geographical name in China since 2009, and it is also on the European Union's register of protected names.

The simplest tea to make

On paper white tea has two steps. The buds are withered, then dried. There is no pan-firing to stop oxidation and no rolling to break the leaf. Traditionally the buds are spread in shallow bamboo baskets in the sun for a long wither, and some makers now wither indoors in rooms with warm, moving air. During that slow wither the buds oxidise a little, and then they are dried at a low temperature to fix them.

Because so little is done to the leaf, there is nowhere to hide: the drying has to stay in a narrow temperature range, or the tea loses its taste. Good buds look fleshy and bright, thickly covered in down.

What it tastes like

The liquor is the palest gold, almost clear, slightly thick, often with white hairs floating on the surface. The aroma is often described as fresh-cut hay. The taste is sweet, soft and gently vegetal, with notes that sellers describe as honeydew melon, wildflowers and cucumber water, and a long, mild sweetness. It is a quiet tea. Next to White Peony, which includes a bud and young leaves, Silver Needle is lighter and sweeter, and White Peony is fuller.

On caffeine

Silver Needle is often sold as a low-caffeine tea. That is not reliable. Buds tend to hold more caffeine than older leaves, and one small study that compared five teas found its white tea, a White Peony, highest of the five. A cup of Silver Needle stays light mainly because of how it is brewed: a small dose and water well below the boil pull out less. Published figures for brewed white tea run from under 10 mg to over 50 mg a cup.

Brewing it

Use water at around 75 to 80°C and about 3 g of buds for 240 ml. Silver Needle gives up its flavor slowly, so steep three to four minutes, and up to five; if the first cup is thin, give it more time before you use hotter water. A glass pot lets you watch the buds stand up in the water as they open. The same buds can be infused several times.

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