Since I wasn’t able to find an untried plain black tea this morning with anything approaching ease, I decided to switch gears and do a plain white tea instead.
I’ve never really understood white tea. I love the concept of it, and I think I’d like the tea itself if I could ever get it to steep in a way that brought out its flavor. But I’ve tried a gazillion different ways, and no matter what I do the best I can get out of it is a sort of dew drop flavor for the silver needle variety and a planty, almost weak black tea flavor out of the white peony variety. Neither of which makes it worth my valuable tea tasting time.
This one falls into the former category. It’s a visually pretty tea with a pungent earthy smell in the newly opened packet. I steeped according to package a directions, and it came out so colorless that the only way I could tell I’d steeped it was the heat.
It smells like nothing so much as hot water, too. After draining the cup, I can smell something very subtley sweet, but wow is it barely there.
My impression of the flavor is pretty much the same. I can’t really taste anything — anything!
I’m concluding that I should drink up all my white tea and then give up on it. I’m sure it will be a mutually beneficial parting as this poor tea is probably everything a person with the gene that can taste white tea could want — but it does absolutely nothing for me. I might as well drink plain hot water.
I’ll probably try it cold brewed and see if that does anything interesting. I might also try it steeping hotter and longer just for laughs. But absent a miracle, I think this is one that’ s lovely fluffy leaves are taking up way too much room in my house for what it provides to me in return.
Flavors: Earth, Sweet
I feel exactly like you about white teas but I have not given up hope yet.