Shou Mei
The leafiest and cheapest grade of Fujian white tea, made largely from mature leaf with few buds and often picked later in the season. It is darker, more robust and far more forgiving than the bud grades, and it is the white tea most often pressed into cakes for ageing.
Character
Rougher and darker than the bud grades, with dried-fruit depth in place of floral delicacy. Cheap, robust and the best white tea to experiment with, because a spoiled pot costs almost nothing.
- Flavour
- Fruity, Woody, Sweet
- Aroma
- Honeyed, Caramelised
- Mouthfeel
- Medium, Smooth
- Complexity
- Moderate
- Notes
- dried hay, date, dried apricot, wood
- Aftertaste
- Sweet and dry, with a faint woody depth.
Moderate intensity: noticeable weight or grip, but neither dominates the cup.
Provenance and production
- Origin
- China
- Region
- Fuding
- Oxidation
- Minimally oxidised
- Harvest
- Autumn
- Processing
- Withering → Drying
Brewing
Western brewing (teapot or mug)
1.5–2.5 g/100 ml · 90–100 °C · 1 authored infusion
Boiling and decoction
0.5–1 g/100 ml · 95–100 °C · 1 authored infusion
Gongfu brewing (gaiwan)
4–6 g/100 ml · 90–100 °C · 5 authored infusions
No caffeine estimate is authored for this tea. TeaHQ does not infer one from its category, because category predicts caffeine poorly — matcha and gyokuro carry more than many black teas.
Common mistakes
- Assuming the low price means low quality rather than a leafier grade
If you like this
Grouped by why they were suggested, strongest reason first. Nothing here is a blended score — a suggestion appears under the best reason that exists for it, and never under a weaker one as well.
Editorially linked
Someone wrote down why these two belong together. The note below is theirs.
- Gong Mei
The two lower white grades, and the distinction is stock rather than picking. Gong Mei comes from seed-grown Cai Cha, Shou Mei usually from Da Bai cultivars.
Similar sensory profile
Shares controlled flavour, aroma and mouthfeel descriptors. A looser match — two teas can share descriptors and still taste nothing alike.
- Aged Shou Mei
Shares 6 descriptors with Shou Mei: sweet, fruity, woody, smooth, caramelised and honeyed.
- Aged white tea cake
Shares 6 descriptors with Shou Mei: sweet, woody, fruity, smooth, honeyed and caramelised.
- Bailin Jin Hao
Shares 6 descriptors with Shou Mei: sweet, fruity, medium, smooth, honeyed and caramelised.
- Balhyocha
Shares 6 descriptors with Shou Mei: fruity, sweet, woody, smooth, medium and honeyed.
- Darjeeling muscatel
Shares 6 descriptors with Shou Mei: fruity, sweet, woody, medium, smooth and honeyed.
- Hong Shui oolong
Shares 6 descriptors with Shou Mei: fruity, sweet, woody, smooth, honeyed and caramelised.
- Tanyang Gongfu
Shares 6 descriptors with Shou Mei: sweet, fruity, woody, smooth, medium and honeyed.
Written comparisons
Where TeaHQ has set this tea against another in full, rather than deriving the comparison.
- White Peony vs Shou Mei — The middle and bottom of the white-tea grade ladder. The counter-intuitive part is that the cheaper grade is generally the better one to age.
- Shou Mei vs White Peony — The bottom two rungs of the white-tea ladder, and the pair where the ladder stops predicting which is the better buy. The ladder implies a quality order, and for ageing it inverts completely.
- Gong Mei vs Shou Mei — The two lowest white-tea grades, and the distinction between them is not what the grade ladder implies. The real difference is the plant rather than the picking, which almost no label explains.