History of white tea

China has a long history of tea. With the development of globalization, more and more foreign countries and people feel interested to enjoy tea. While tea itself still remains mysterious to many people all over the world, it is significant for us to be well-known of the tea history and culture at the time when we enjoy tea.

When it comes to the tea, what will make you think of immediately? Perhaps there have a lot of words to say, now in the following we only discuss about the white tea, one of the important tea varieties in China. Before you drinking and tasting, let us to know more information about the white tea history.

All you know is that white tea originated in China, but the history of white tea may be contested and complicated to you, for the reason that when we are finding adequate citation about the white tea history is very difficult especially when discussing Chinese tea in general. It is a real fact that the system of tea knowledge is often orally transmitted. Scholars and tea merchants generally disagree as to when the first production of white tea began. However, what is today known as white tea may have become into creation in the last two-centuries. White tea may have first appeared in English publication in 1876, where it is categorized as a black tea because it is not initially cooked like a green tea, to deactivate internal enzymes and external microbes. It is worth noting that at this time Hanson only identified two types of tea, black and green.

When working loosely with sources, claims are made that white tea is the oldest type of tea for various reasons, though it should be noted among the university appointed tea scholars in China debate focuses on whether red, green or black tea is the oldest form of tea, and white tea is conspicuously absent from this dialogue.

Stories do appear referring to a "white" tea as that preferred tea of Chinese royalty, where it was first produced during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.). For some time, only the emperor and his courtiers would drink white tea as it was rare and expensive. However this "white" tea was produced differently than it is today. At this time leaves were compressed into cakes. Around the time of the Song Dynasty, by 1200 A.D., the immature silver white leaf-buds were immediately steamed, dried and ground into a powder. Another story that is told discusses the need for those who pick white tea to be virgins so that their fingers will not crush the buds when they are harvested. It is likely that these stories do not refer to white process tea but rather to the picking of undamaged buds, which can then be used to make any of the six types of tea.

White tea has now become more widely available, often being sold as Silvery Tip Pekoe, a form of its traditional name, and now it also sold with the simple designations China White and Fujian White.