White Tea FAQ

Ernan White Tea (二南白茶) is a Fuding white tea house founded in 2014 by Ernan (二南), born Kong Nairong. His family has made tea in Fuding, Fujian, for four generations, since the late Qing dynasty. The house sun-withers its tea for more than forty hours, keeps an archive of vintages, and offers everything by personal enquiry.

Ernan (二南), born Kong Nairong (孔乃容) in Fuding in 1980, is a 74th-generation descendant of Confucius. He entered the Chan gate at fifteen, spent twenty years in robes and came to serve as abbot of E’feng Temple, then came down the mountain in 2014 and founded Ernan White Tea. He also paints in oils and writes calligraphy and poetry.

In two places. The family gardens and retreat are in Fuding, Fujian, China, where the tea is grown and made. Since 2019 Ernan has also kept a white tea and Chan arts house in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where the aged cakes are poured. Every enquiry goes to one address, ernan@thesilknet.com.

“Chan is not apart from daily life. For ordinary people tea quenches thirst; for the literati it measures a life; in the Chan master’s world, tea is the finger pointing directly at the mind.”

White tea from Fuding, a county on the coast of north-east Fujian that China calls the home of white tea. The leaf is picked, withered slowly and dried, with no rolling and no firing. It comes in four kinds: Silver Needle, White Peony, Gong Mei and Shou Mei, sold loose or pressed into cakes.

Place and leaf. Fuding’s gardens sit between mountains and sea, often in morning cloud, and its local Fuding Da Bai tea bushes grow thick, downy buds. Made by withering alone, the tea keeps that character and goes on changing in the cake for years. At Ernan White Tea the withering is in the sun, for more than forty hours.

White tea that has been kept for years after it was made, usually pressed into cakes. Because the leaf is neither rolled nor fired, it keeps changing slowly: the grass and flowers of youth soften into honey, dried fruit and jujube, and the cup grows deeper. It is valued for that change, and because a well-kept vintage cannot be made again.

Picked by hand (early, tender, clean), withered in sun and mountain wind for more than forty hours, dried and sorted, then sealed for about a year. At the moment its fragrance peaks it is steamed, pressed into cakes, dried and sealed again. Nothing is rolled or fired into shape.

Because so little is done to the leaf, it keeps changing in the cake for decades. The fresh, grassy notes of the first years soften toward honey, dried fruit and jujube; the character keeps deepening.

“White tea is truly a living tea. Hold expectations of it, and it will happily prove you wrong.” Weather, season, pressing and storage all speak in the cup — that is the point.

They come from gardens abandoned to the mountain years ago. Yields are tiny, roots run deep, and the flavour carries a mineral wildness no tended row can give.

White tea from every year from 2010 to 2022, and older, back to 2008, alongside a 1980 Tieguanyin, a 1996 Wuyi rock tea, and a few red teas and Pu’er: 101 teas in all. Among them are the 2010 Unpolished Truth, the 2014 Snow Tea and the 2018 Clear Peace. The full list is on The Tea Archive.

By enquiry. Write through the Enquire button on any page or to ernan@thesilknet.com, naming the tea or simply what you are looking for. The reply comes personally, in English or Chinese, with the story, the condition, and what remains.

Yes. Private tastings are held in Fuding and in Chiang Mai, and for houses before any allocation. Use “Request a tasting” above, or write with the teas you would like to taste and when you could come.

Yes, with a small number at a time. Hotels, restaurants, tea houses, retailers and companies buying gifts are answered personally, begin with a tasting, and receive tea by annual allocation or by the lot, each with its written record of mountain, season, pressing and storage.

Yes. A vintage cake with its story suits a client or a partner, and some teas are pressed as gift sets; One Taste accompanies the book. Tell us who the gift is for and how many people; we suggest teas from the archive and reply with what remains.

Begin with a spring cake like True Suchness for freshness, or an aged autumn tea like Clear Peace for depth — then write to us with what you found, and we will point the way onward.

Sealed against moisture and light — then anywhere calm. A sealed bag or tin in a dry cupboard is enough; the tea does the rest itself.

Break the cake gently along its layers, wake the leaf with water just off the boil and pour that first water away, then steep briefly, letting later infusions run a little longer. For cakes three years and older, boiling also suits: simmer the leaf briefly from cold water and let it settle.

Good spring water is best; filtered water works well. Purified (deionised) water flattens the tea.

Beautifully. In summer, steep a pot in cool water overnight and drink it the next morning: it comes out clean, sweet and gentle.

Aged cakes take kindly to a little tangerine peel when boiled, and in the old house a piece of rock sugar sometimes went into the winter pot. Taste it plain first.

Spring teas, with their grass and flower aromas, suit mornings and summer. Autumn teas, rich and full, suit afternoons, and the aged cakes are boiled in winter.

Yes, in small parties, at both houses: the family retreat in the tea gardens of Fuding, Fujian, and the tea house in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Send your dates and how many you are through the Enquire button or to ernan@thesilknet.com; the reply comes personally with what the days would hold.

To Fuding for the spring picking, from late March into April, or the White Dew harvest in early autumn; winter is quiet. In Chiang Mai there are tea sessions morning and evening; send the dates that suit you.

A bilingual volume of poems, calligraphy and oil paintings by Ernan, in Chinese 茶汤里的烟云. It holds 33 poems with English translation by Chen Shan, and prefaces by Wang Linhai and Snow-Mountain White Phoenix. The title, he writes, carries two meanings: the steam over a cup, like mountain mist, and the world passing like drifting cloud.

By enquiry. Write through the Enquire button or to ernan@thesilknet.com, and the reply comes personally. One Taste, a 2017 Shou Mei, is pressed as the gift set that accompanies the book.