Jingmai Moonlight White

This tea is for the wise and patient people.

First, it takes more than three days to make it. During that time, the tea maker does nothing, but yet, nothing is left undone. The moonlight white tea maker is a Taoist.

A fine grade is required, here, one bud/one leaf material from the natural tea gardens of Jingmai. After picking, they are laid in a scattered way on flat bamboo baskets and left in the shades. The slow process of withering changes the aspect of the leaves, they oxidize partially before drying out. The lack of moisture stops the reddening of the leaves. To make sure it's really dry when we gather it, we offer the leaves a brief sunbath, half an hour at most. The final result is a mix of silvery buds and very dark leaves. This is the first reason why this tea is not one to be made hastily.

The second reason is related to the rolling process, or rather its lack of rolling. This step is used in most of the teas to bring the tea juices and their flavors out of the leaves; it also gives a particular shape to the leaves: ball-shaped for many oolongs or wrinkled for pu-erh loose leaves and black teas. Since this tea is not rolled, it tends to keep its original shape and is therefore quite bulky. More importantly, its flavors are still inside the leaf cells, and they need time to be extracted. The tea drinker should be patient when brewing moonlight white.

Give it over a minute of brewing, and you will find in your cup beautiful fragrance, actually very close to the ones we can smell in the tea factory when the fresh leaves have withered. This is what should literally be called a tea fragrance.

Moonlight White tea is just impossible to over-brew, you will hardly get any bitterness from it unless you asked for it. It always delivers a very fine brew, filled with complex aromas and a soft aftertaste. It is the one you want when you feel overwhelmed by life. It won't energize you like Pu-erh tea but can surely bring peace to your mind.