From the Archives | White Peony

Now that Qing Ming is over and the pre-rain harvest of White Down Silver Needle/ Baihao Yinzhen is also officially over, we are harvesting the White Peony white tea here at Fuding, Fujian, China. The weather was incredibly cooperative for photo taking today, with clear blue skies, a little breeze, and lots of mosquitoes out for blood just for me. The days leading up to Qing Ming, alas, were filled with rain, and the tea harvesting had to often wait a couple of days between rainfall, as any downpour made the buds too wet to harvest and then dry properly. However, they do grow up fast in the rain, and the Silver Needle quality varied wildly between different harvest days. The ones picked right around a rainy day were grassy green tasting and not ideal. The later ones after Qing Ming were actually better this year, and I tasted one this afternoon. Incredible lingering aftertaste, your palate and mind completely won over by this tingling fresh sugar-less fruitiness. The after-April 4th harvest was even better! So much for the mythology of ‘pre-rain’.