White tea vs green tea
Both are pale, both are described as delicate, and only one of them is. The real difference is that white tea is never fixed with heat, which changes both what it tastes like and how it should be brewed.
What is being compared
Why these get confused
White tea is very widely believed to be the lowest-caffeine tea and to need cool water. Neither holds: bud-only grades are made from the part of the plant where caffeine concentrates, and minimal processing is not the same as fragility.
Point by point
| Aspect | White tea | Green tea |
|---|---|---|
| What they are | Leaf withered — often outdoors over a day or more — and then dried. No fixation, no deliberate rolling. | Leaf fixed with steam or dry heat, then rolled and dried. |
| Production difference | The least intervention of any category, which allows a small amount of incidental oxidation. Grades describe what was picked — buds only, buds plus leaf, leaf. | Fixation is the defining act, and the method — steamed or pan-fired — splits the category in two. |
| Flavour difference | Commonly described as hay-like, melon-sweet and gently floral, with very little astringency and a soft body. | Commonly described as grassy, marine or nutty, with more briskness and a drying finish. |
| Brewing difference | 85 to 95 °C and three to five minutes — hotter and longer than most people expect. Under-brewing is the standard fault. | 70 to 85 °C and shorter. Over-brewing is the standard fault. The two categories fail in opposite directions. |
| Ageing | Pressed white tea ages well over years, developing dried date and honey. A genuine second life the category is bought for. | Best within a year and noticeably duller after two. Ageing is decline, not development. |
The short answer
Bai Mudan is the sensible entry to white tea rather than Silver Needle: more flavour per pound, more body, and far more forgiving. Brew it hotter than instinct suggests. White tea is also the harder of the two to buy well, because its subtlety hides both quality and the absence of it.
Not a ranking. TeaHQ publishes no ratings and does not know your occasion.