vivian maxine » April 10th, 2015, 8:37 am wrote:Darby, please talk about white teas. I'd never heard of white teas until recently. What are they made of and how do they taste? Who makes them? You mention black teas being bitter and that is my problem with tea. Maybe white teas would be better. Thank you and I like your post above.
I penned
an overview of tea varieties back on Feb 23rd.
There are also certain high end regional varieties of both green and oolong that resemble white teas in flavor/style that can be pretty delicate and wonderful too ... one of my favorites being
Quangzhou Milk Oolong (a light unflavored oolong from Quangzhou China that has a naturally occuring milk-like flavor & subtle sweetness).
Be advised - with high end loose white and oolong teas, you're competing with hundreds of millions of aficianados thoughout asia, so once you ascend past a certain minimum point of high quality, you start to get what you pay for, plus whatever iterative markupa get tacked on by all the trademen between you and the bush they came from. As with high end wine, finding and enjoying undervalued selections becomes a skill in and of itself, which is where self education on regions and varieties can really help.
As for black tea ... if excess tannin is an issue, you have two techniques that can help you. One is to cut your steeping time from 5 mins to 3, and the other is to pre-seep for 20 seconds and discard the liquid before doing the 3-5 min steep for consumption. The presteep removes about 2/3rds of the caffine and cuts back on the tannin as well, leaving a more floral and lower caffinated cuppa. Personally, I like the full 5, but that's just me. You could also try switching from assam/breakfast teas to darjeeling, which is inherently a bit less tannic and more floral in style, even though it is still technically a 'black' variety.