White Night

What a fascinating tea!

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I placed my first order with Mandala Tea, and all arrived quickly, nicely packaged and with extra sample tea as well. I had heard good things about Mandala, and Garret (the owner) and myself had exchanged a few emails through discussions here on Steepster. I am just amazed at the friendly, courteous and interesting people that make up the tea community in MN, and am glad that they have sellers like Mandala and Verdant Tea to introduce them to fine Chinese tea!

The White Night tea is like nothing I have ever tried before. It has the familiar earthiness that you find in Yunnan green and pu’erh teas, but is so light and sweet with an ethereal aroma. In German they say “Himmel und Erde,” or “Heaven and Earth,” which is truly what this tea brings to mind. And each time I thought my gaiwan of leaves could yield no more, another steep proved me wrong. The first 5 steepings were amazing, the next three still were very good, before I decided to retire the leaves to the compost bin.

Thank you for showing me how a white tea can have as much complexity and full bodied flavor, and need not be simply subtle and light.

I had been looking forward to trying a White Night/Moonlight for a while, since it sounded very interesting and has the characteristics of some of my favorite teas. It didn’t disappoint!

Dry leaves: Cream colored tips and chocolaty brown leaves. The dry aroma is similar to dian hong, but slightly more muted with a mildly lavender scent and a slight sheng pu’erh mustiness.

Early steeps: Mild and sweet with flavors of lavender, yam, and white grape with slight marine qualities. The taste reminds me of a very soft golden needle, but has a mouthfeel more like a sheng pu.

Later steeps: A sweet greenness appears that reminds me of guapan or Taiwanese oolongs. Slight mushroom flavor, and VERY creamy.

This tea had a WHOLE LOT of qi for me. Very warm, sleepy, and medatative, and strong feelings along my eyebrows, forehead, and spine. I haven’t been this tea-drunk in quite a while :P

Well I can’t very well improve on the terrific description by tperez and can only add that for someone who has apparently only had low quality (tasteless) white teas, this was a revelation. Mild and light, yes, but with the complexity and presence that drew me to better oolongs as my gateway drug to good teas. As this was a sample thrown into my green/oolong order by Garret, I guess he knew just how to get me to branch out. He’s a great tea guide, that one.

This was included as a sample from Mandala. I was skeptical at first—most white teas I’ve had are so subtle that it’s like sipping warm water. But just one glance showed this to be something different. It had large fluffy white leaves alongside dark brown/black leaves, as if it was a blend of white and black tea. In fact, it’s all white tea, but some leaves have been oxidized and this presents an interesting contrast.

I wish I had read the steeping directions more carefully and noticed that others have gotten so many steepings from their White Night. I steeped my sample for 3 minutes, which is far too long for a first steeping. I’m looking forward to trying some more of this but will be more careful how I use it.

Sipdown for a tea that didn’t make it into my cupboard.

Spring 2018
Boiling, 2-3 minutes

Super light even at high temperatures. Soft and creamy. A little bit of vanilla and honey. Of the two whites I ordered from Mandala, I like the other one ‘White Night’ better. I like my white teas to be a little more robust and not so delicate.

I’ve had this for some time, so I picked it out of the rucksack to steep out. The leaf has long delicate tendrils with no discernible scent. It was incredibly light, so I couldn’t quite place what I was sniffing, but I would say a light hay-y aroma. I brought out one of my English tea pots and brewed away. The taste was nice and subtle. I am not a huge fan of white tea, but this one was decent. The liquor is a rusted orange with a slight earth green aroma. The taste is smooth, light, and sweet with tones of hay, cane sugar, vanilla, and wood. Also, this brew has a delicious base of lemon grass that follows to the nose. I liked this tea, and it was an interesting steeper.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BD5-DCaTGTH/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

This is a very nice white tea. The dry leaf is beautiful, with silver and black leaves.

I used 1tbls of leaf. It was challenging to get the leaf to stay on the spoon because it is so twisted and long!
It seems to be a complex tea. The first infusion is light with lots of silky smooth hay and honey notes. It is a little different than any other white tea I have tried in the past.
The second infusion (at 3 minutes) seems to be creamier. It is a very comforting cuppa.
The third infusion (4 minutes) is sweet and smooth, the honey is back.
I did a 4th (5 minutes) and 5th (6 minutes) infusion, but didn’t have enough time to pay attention to detailed notes

On the website, it says to rinse the tea. The bag that I received has different steeping parameters than on the website and it did not say to rinse. Maybe I will try the websites parameters next time to see what develops.

Bought two ounces of this with my Mandala order. It one tasty tea. It could be because I added sugar but a get notes of apples with this tea, tart apples. I think it would be sweet without the sugar.

I steeped it one time with 2 tbsp tea and175 degree water in my Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper for 2 miin.

I really enjoyed it. It is quite strong for a white tea.Tasted just like the autumn air here in Minnesota.

I’m on my fourth steep of this now (160F/3min), and I swear the hay note has transformed into coconut. The kind of sugary coconut you might get from the Hawaiian McDonald’s Haupia Pies. I liked the hay honey-jam of the first couple steeps but baked/fried coconut cream is a special class of friend.

Thanks, OMGsrsly, for bringing this over for me to try!