What is White Tea ?
Sri Lanka traditionally produces one of the world’s finest white teas in the form of Silver Tips and Golden Tips, entirely handmade from a special variant of the Camellia Sinensis plant, untouched by machines and prized for their rarity and subtle character. The Chinese also have a tradition of producing fine White Teas. In the production of white tea the ‘bud’ is selectively plucked and sun dried. Since the Bud remains undamaged the Catechins or the un-oxidised Polyphenols present remain intact. What we refer to as Flavonoids in tea, or the antioxidants in tea, include the un-oxidised Polyphenols or Catechins as in Green Tea and White Tea, as well as the Theaflavins and low molecular Thearubigins in conventional Black Tea. The Catechins (Flavonoids) content in the tea becomes progressively less as we go down from the Bud to the mature leaves in a tea shoot. The bud has the highest catechin content, next the first leaf, followed by the second leaf and so on. Hence the sun dried buds or
Sri Lanka traditionally produces one of the world’s finest white teas in the form of Silver Tips and Golden Tips, entirely handmade from a special variant of the Camellia Sinensis plant, untouched by machines and prized for their rarity and subtle character. The Chinese also have a tradition of producing fine White Teas. In the production of white tea the ‘bud’ is selectively plucked and sun dried. Since the Bud remains undamaged the Catechins or the un-oxidised Polyphenols present remain intact. What we refer to as Flavonoids in tea, or the antioxidants in tea, include the un-oxidised Polyphenols or Catechins as in Green Tea and White Tea, as well as the Theaflavins and low molecular Thearubigins in conventional Black Tea. The Catechins (Flavonoids) content in the tea becomes progressively less as we go down from the Bud to the mature leaves in a tea shoot. The bud has the highest catechin content, next the first leaf, followed by the second leaf and so on. Hence the sun dried buds or
The production of white tea is different from other tea. The leaves come from special varietal tea bushes and are not processed but are dried and withered in the sun.Only a special “two leaves and a bud’ are selected with the ideal being two leaves wrapped around a newly developing shoot. After withering and drying these leaves are painstakingly selected and hand sorted.
