Enquire中文
Since the late Qing dynasty
Fuding · Chiang Mai
Terraced white tea gardens in Fuding under low cloud

Fuding White Tea Where white tea
comes from

Silver Needle, White Peony, Gong Mei and Shou Mei, from the county China calls the home of white tea.

Fuding white tea is white tea from Fuding, a county on the coast of north-east Fujian, China, that is known as the home of white tea. It is made by picking, slow withering and drying alone, with no rolling and no firing, and it comes in four kinds: Silver Needle, White Peony, Gong Mei and Shou Mei. Ernan White Tea (二南白茶) is a Fuding family house whose gardens sit at 500 to 800 metres near West Kun village.

Why Fuding

Fuding lies in the north-east corner of Fujian, where the mountains fall toward the East China Sea. The tea gardens climb the slopes between them, and most mornings they sit inside cloud. The leaf grows slowly in that cool, damp air and comes out thick, with a heavy coat of silver down. White tea is made in other places now, but Fuding is where the style is rooted, and the county has been called the home of white tea for generations.

The family of Ernan White Tea has made tea in these mountains since the last years of the Qing dynasty. Its gardens run from 500 to 800 metres; the family village is West Kun, known as the first village of Confucius’s descendants in the south, and the old gate there carries the four characters the tea house is named for. The family retreat stands in the rows themselves, with the storehouse a few steps away. Fuding, the mountain shows the place.

The leaf: Fuding Da Bai

Most Fuding white tea comes from the local tea bushes known as Fuding Da Bai, the Fuding Big White. They put out large, plump buds covered in fine white hair, which is where the silver of Silver Needle comes from and why a good white tea looks frosted in the hand. The glossary has the term in Chinese.

How it is made

White tea is the least made of all teas. The leaf is picked, withered and dried, and that is all: no rolling, no pan-firing, no shaping. Withering is where the tea is made. Spread thin on bamboo trays, the leaf loses its water slowly and turns from grassy to sweet. The house rule at Ernan White Tea is sun-withering for more than forty hours; finished leaf is then sealed for around a year before some of it is pressed into cakes. The craft has every step.

The four kinds

Silver Needle, White Peony, Gong Mei, Shou Mei

Fuding white tea is sorted by what is picked: buds alone, or buds with leaves, and how far down the shoot the picking goes. The finer the picking, the paler and more delicate the cup; the coarser, the fuller the body and the more the tea has to give over years of keeping. Each kind below lists the teas of that kind in the archive.

Silver Needle Bai Hao Yin Zhen

Buds only, picked in the short window around the spring equinox: the shortest harvest and the smallest yield of the year. Each needle stands upright in the water, thick with white down. The cup is pale, clean and quietly sweet; with years it softens toward honey. “Buds like a gentleman’s bearing: reserved, upright, snow-clad.”

Gong Mei Gong Mei

A step down the shoot from White Peony: smaller buds with more leaf, picked in spring. Gong Mei is brighter and more direct than Shou Mei, and it presses into cakes that stay lively for years. The house’s Gong Mei are spring teas: True Suchness from Grain Rain, the small Chan Heart cakes from Qingming, and Moistening Life, given a light charcoal bake for a jujube sweetness.

Shou Mei Shou Mei

Leaf and bud together on the stem, “leaves curled whole like eyebrows,” which gives the name. Shou Mei is the fullest and most rustic of the four, and the kind most often pressed into cakes and kept. Autumn Shou Mei, picked around White Dew, has a rounded, dry, generous aroma; over the years it deepens toward dates and wood. Snow Tea, Clear Peace and Bright Moon, Chan Heart are all Shou Mei.

Beyond the four

Winter-leaf tea

Leaf picked after the winter solstice, possible only in a warm winter, which is why so little exists. The old leaves grow thick against the cold; the liquor is apricot-gold, sweet and full. The house calls its winter-leaf tea Nurtured Reserve.

Spring and autumn

The season matters as much as the kind. Spring teas, picked before Qingming or around Grain Rain, carry grass and flower aromas; they are fresh and bright, for mornings and summer. Autumn teas, picked around White Dew when the nights turn cold, are rich and full; they suit afternoons, and the aged ones are boiled in winter. The craft page lists the house’s teas of each season, and aged white tea explains what the years do to them.

See the whole archive
Questions

Fuding white tea, briefly

What is Fuding white tea?

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.

What makes Fuding white tea different from other white teas?

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.

Which kind of Fuding white tea should I start with?

For freshness, a spring tea: a Silver Needle, a White Peony, or a spring cake like True Suchness. For depth, an aged autumn Shou Mei like Clear Peace. Write with what you found, and the house will point the way onward.

Tell us which kind draws you, or what you drink now; we reply with teas from the archive.

Enquire about Fuding white tea