Aged Shou Mei

Where it grows

The districts recorded against this tea, all of them in China. Elevation is given as the band the district is recorded at, not a measurement of the garden this leaf came from.

• Fuding — 100–800 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.

The plants it is made from

Cultivar is the level below the variety group: a named selection of the tea plant, propagated as clones from one parent. Most consumer writing stops at the country and the category, which leaves out the layer that decides how the leaf behaves before anyone picks it.

• Cai Cha — Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

  Its variability is the reason older Fujian teas taste less uniform than modern ones, and is a genuine quality in categories where complexity is wanted.

How it is made, in order

Read top to bottom: the list is the production sequence, and the sequence is what makes this tea its category rather than a neighbouring one. The same leaf from the same bush becomes a green tea or a black tea depending on where the heat falls relative to the bruising, so reordering these steps would not vary the tea — it would produce a different one.

1. 1. Withering — Reduces water content, softens the leaf for later handling, and permits early enzymatic and aromatic development.
2. 2. Drying — Reduces residual moisture to a level at which enzymatic, microbial and oxidative change effectively stops, stabilising the leaf for storage.
3. 3. Ageing and storage — Allows slow oxidative, microbial and thermal change to continue in stored leaf, gradually converting sharp young character into darker, rounder and sweeter character.

The route it is made by

The steps above are what happens; this is the named production route they belong to, with the other teas made the same way.

• Pressed and aged white tea — The withered-and-dried route with a pressing tail bolted on, borrowed wholesale from dark tea and applied to a leaf that was never fixed and never rolled.

  Where it is practised: Fujian, chiefly Fuding, and increasingly Yunnan for large-leaf white material. The practice is recent enough that long-aged examples are scarce and the trade's expectations about them run ahead of the evidence.

What its chemistry turns on

Every true tea contains caffeine, catechins and amino acids, so listing them would say nothing about this one. What differs is what the processing above does to them — and that is the same list of steps, read for its chemistry instead of its craft.

The compounds that substantially decide what this tea is: Gallic acid.

• Withering
  • creates Geraniol
  • creates Linalool
  • creates Linalool oxides
  • creates Theasinensins
  • raises Methyl salicylate
  • raises Nerolidol
  • raises Soluble sugars
  • lowers cis-3-Hexenol
  • lowers Green-leaf volatiles
  • lowers Leaf lipids
• Drying
  • creates Strecker aldehydes
  • raises Beta-damascenone
  • raises Thearubigins
• Ageing and storage
  • raises Gallic acid
  • raises Pectins
  • raises Pheophytin
  • raises Thearubigins
  • lowers Catechins
  • lowers Chlorophyll
  • lowers Tea cream

These are statements about the leaf and the cup. What any of these compounds does in a body is a different kind of question and is not answered here or on the pages linked from it.

History

The market for aged white tea developed in the 2000s, largely in Guangdong and among South-East Asian buyers, and it made the cheapest grade the most interesting one to keep. That inversion is about twenty years old.

TeaHQ synthesis — TeaHQ's own reading of well-attested general knowledge, with no single source behind it.

Brewing

• Western brewing (teapot or mug)

  1.5–2.5 g/100 ml · 90–100 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Western teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

• Gongfu brewing (gaiwan)

  4–6 g/100 ml · 90–100 °C · 5 authored infusions

  Needs: Gaiwan

  Open in the brew assistant

• Boiling and decoction

  0.8–1.4 g/100 ml · 96–100 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Open in the brew assistant

• Boiling aged and dark tea (zhu cha)

  0.8–1.5 g/100 ml · 98–100 °C · 2 authored infusions

  Needs: Kettle, Brewing saucepan, Tea strainer

  Open in the brew assistant

When the cup goes wrong

Written against white tea as a category rather than against this tea in particular, and worked back from the symptom to the likely causes in order. 8 apply to the category; the first 6 are shown.

• My cold brew tastes like faintly flavoured water — After a night in the fridge the jug is pale and tastes of very little, with none of the sweetness cold brewing is supposed to give.
• My green tea tastes flat and looks dark in this house — A delicate green tea that tasted bright elsewhere comes out dull and heavy here, with a darker, browner liquor than it should have and none of its aroma.
• My leaf floats on top and will not sink — Dry leaf sits on the surface in a dry-looking raft, and the tea underneath is pale long after it should have been ready.
• My pu-erh cake will not break apart cleanly — The cake resists the pick, then gives way suddenly into powder and fragments rather than intact leaf.
• My tea tastes of the cupboard it was kept in — The dry leaf carries a note that does not belong to it — spice, coffee, cleaning products, or simply a generalised kitchen smell — and the same note comes through in the cup.
• My water is not the temperature the kettle says — The kettle is set to 80 °C and the tea behaves as though it were much hotter or much cooler, and the same setting gives different results on different days.

Every diagnosed brewing problem

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.

Compare this tea with another

Written comparisons

Where TeaHQ has set this tea against another in full, rather than deriving the comparison. Each one is a written page with the points of difference argued out.

• Aged oolong vs aged white tea — Two categories that reward keeping, by different mechanisms and with very different maintenance requirements. One needs periodic attention and the other needs to be left alone, which decides which suits you. Put the two side by side
• Young vs aged white tea — The same leaf a decade apart, and the transformation is more dramatic than in any other category. The transformation is more dramatic here than in any other category, and it favours the cheapest grade. Put the two side by side

Journeys featuring this tea

• Exploring white tea — Someone who found white tea thin and suspects they are missing something.

Guides covering this tea

• Ageing as a product: white tea, roasted oolong, and the work of re-firing
• Storing tea in a very dry climate, and through a centrally heated winter
• Honey, malt, caramel and dried fruit: the sweet aroma families