My Top 10 Pages On White Tea

Recently, I posted a A Challenge: What Are The 10 Most Useful Web Pages On White Tea?. In this post I demonstrated how the pages that come up in a google search for "white tea" are not all high-quality, carefully-maintained websites and articles, and I challenged people to come up with what results they personally would prefer, in their ideal world, to come up.

This post shows my ranking. I know it is really tough and a lot of work to come up with a list like this, but I would like to encourage people to do it, because I think it will have a positive effect on tea culture by helping to draw attention to companies selling high-quality teas, and to websites which contain valuable information. I would also like to encourage people to challenge my list in the comments, providing me with other sites they'd like to see in the list.

My (admittedly biased) ranking:

I want to say ahead of time that this ranking is far from perfect, and there are undoubtedly a lot of good sites omitted from this list. If your site is not on this list and you think it belongs here, please don't feel bad--just leave a comment! If I get enough replies I may write a follow-up post about new pages I discovered through this process.

This list is skewed by my own bias of tea companies and websites which I have happened upon largely through chance, and it's also skewed by my own tastes and preferences (which, in white teas, tend towards sampling pure white teas from unusual regions).

1. White Tea on Wikipedia - This page is far from perfect, but I still think it is the best search result to return in the first position. It is wikified, meaning that it is linked into a bunch of pages on related topics, it is relatively well-referenced (much more so than any other page I could find), with numerous in-line citations to published books and articles in peer-reviewed journals. It also is an independent resource, not maintained by a tea company, and it is continually evolving, in such a way that makes it highly likely that the page will tend to get better over time.
2. White Tea on RateTea - I realize I'm biased here, but I think that this is the second-best page about white tea on the net, and I think this page belongs in as the second search result. Like Wikipedia, it is independent of any tea company, and it is well-maintained and updated. It is also tied into a database of white teas from various tea companies, and these teas are classified by brand, type of white tea, and region of origin. There are also separate articles on each type of white tea and each region producing white tea. Even without the reviews (of which there are 50), this page is both useful as an informational resource, and as a tool for browsing different sources of buying white tea.
3. White & Yellow Tea Forum on TeaChat - TeaChat, a forum run by Adagio Teas, has a whole section dedicated to discussion about white and yellow tea, and as one might expect, it is primarily about white tea. I would place this page third in the search results for white tea because it is, in my experience, the single place online where one can find the most active discussion of white teas.
4. White Teas from Upton Tea Imports - I placed Upton so high on this list because of the thoroughness of its catalogue, especially in terms of unusual offerings that are not readily available elsewhere. Although the white teas sold by Upton come in and out of stock, and at any time, not all are available, the company offers a remarkable number of white teas from "non-standard" regions, including Ceylon, Kenya, Assam, Darjeeling, and Taiwan. Among Chinese white teas, Upton also stands out as having the largest selection of Shou Mei (Longevity Eyebrows) of any Western tea company that I know of, and they also sell a few other white teas that go beyond the usual silver needle and white peony, including the "pseudo-white" Yunnan tea, moonlight white.
5. About White Tea - Seven Cups - Seven Cups is a small retailer of Chinese teas. Although their catalogue only currently has one white tea, I found their informational article about white tea to be very rich and thorough on the topics of white tea history and production in China. There are also many photographs depicting white tea production, although they are unlabelled.
6. What Really is a White Tea? on TeaGuardian - TeaGuardian is a strictly informational site about tea, run by Leo Kwan. I discovered this site through someone linking to it as a reference on Wikipedia; although I removed it as a reference because I did not think it met Wikipedia's strict guidelines for a reliable source, as it is self-published, I do think that this page and the related pages on the site presents above-average information above white tea. Not only is this site thorough and accurate, but it has some great photos of tea leaf illustrating the points it makes, and it is likely to contain some information that most people do not know.
7. Best White Teas on Steepster - Steepster also has a database of white teas. I think this list is complementary to RateTea's resource. Although Steepster has no informational articles about white tea, and groups all white tea (including flavored teas) into a single category, Steepster stands out in having more ratings and more reviews (or tasting notes) than RateTea, or than any other site that I am aware of. As such I think it also belongs on this list.
8. White Tea on Norbu Tea - Norbu Tea is a small tea company selling single-harvest, single-origin teas. Although I have yet to try any of this company's teas, the pages on each of this company's white teas stand out in describing the harvest date, specific location of production (to much more detail than most companies offer), and cultivar used. Furthermore, there is a detailed article about each individual tea, explaining the influence of location and cultivar, and the history and character of each particular tea.
9. White & Yellow Tea on JK Tea Shop - JK Tea shop carries a number of Chinese white teas as well, including ones hard to find in the West. Like Norbu Tea it provides information on cultivar, specific region of production, and harvest date. There are also great photos of the dry leaf, as well as the leaf brewing in a gaiwan, used leaf, and brewed liquor. And take a look at the prices too! I have yet to try any of these teas but I rarely see leaf that looks this good for this low a price.
10. White Tea: Culmination of Elegance - This is a pretty lengthy article, by Joshua Keiser, about white tea, hosted on TeaMuse, a site run by Adagio Tea. Although it is unreferenced, it does have a lot of information and it also links to some of Adagio Tea's offerings of white tea. Adagio stocks several different types of Chinese white teas, and one Darjeeling white; I have tried three of these teas and liked all of them, especially their white peony.

You may notice that there is not a single page on this list that is dedicated specifically to the health benefits or health effects of white tea, although the Wikipedia article does touch on this issue, and RateTea's article and a few other pages on the various websites linked to also discuss the common caffeine myth. This is not because I don't think this is an important topic, it is because I think most of the sites dealing with this topic are either lower in quality, or (like academic articles in peer-reviewed journals) not accessible to a general audience and thus not terribly useful to return on a first page of search results.

If you think your page belongs on this list, or if you think I have omitted a good resource, please let me know:

I may not know of (or have forgotten about) a page that, if I thought about it, I would like to place in this list, perhaps bumping the last page or two off the list. If you would like me to consider any other page, please leave a blog comment or contact me by some other means!

I found the end of this list in particular really tough to put together.

Please publish your list:

The point of this post is to reshape the search environment surrounding white tea, in order to promote the websites that are offering the best and most useful, accurate, and informative sites on the topic of white tea.

If you have a blog or website, please publish your own list! I know that it is very hard to come up with a list like this. But this attempt to reshape the internet search landscape around white tea will only work if a large number of bloggers take up this challenge.

A Challenge: What Are The 10 Most Useful Web Pages On White Tea?

This page is about a problem that you can help solve if you are a blogger or tea company webmaster, or if you have any web presence whatsoever. The gist of this post is that I am challenging bloggers and webmasters to come up with a list of, and then link to, the 10 pages that they think would be the best and most relevant pages to return in online search results related to white tea.

Why this challenge?

I work very hard on RateTea. I have now put in over three years of work designing and maintaining the site. Although I have received some help from the other two site admins, Sylvia, and Gretchen (who worked with the site two summers ago), and Sylvia still works on the site's graphic design, I do the bulk of the work (programming and writing) myself.

The site is not performing as well as I would like it to in search results for certain search terms, and there are numerous websites outranking it that I personally believe to be much less useful or relevant, and that do not seem to reflect the same sort of work that I've put into RateTea. Let me give you one example of a search query which I find particularly frustrating. Here is a screenshot of a google search result for "white tea":

RateTea's page on white tea is buried deep within this search. When opening a clean web browser and running a non-personalized search, it displayed first on the 11th page of search results; google webmaster tools shows that its average rank is 180th in the list. With my personalized search results, on which I have +1'ed RateTea's page, it is still on the fifth page. Barely any people travel this far. I think this is unfortunate both for RateTea, and for tea culture in general, as I will show, many of the search results that are returned before RateTea's page are ones that I think most people would agree are far less useful or informative than RateTea's page.

RateTea's page is not the only one that is getting buried...there are numerous pages by bloggers and tea companies that I would like to see on this list that are also buried very deep in this search (much deeper than RateTea's page).

RateTea's page on white tea:

I want to invite you to visit RateTea's page about white tea. I personally think this page is an outstanding, unparalleled resource for information about white tea--but I am biased because I have an interest in promoting my own site, so I would like to ask you to view the site with a critical eye. My intention for the page is that it can be a central resource on the topic of white tea, where people can go to find:

• An introductory article defining white tea and talking about its production and origins, hyperlinked into articles on related topics, like the various regions producing white tea, caffeine levels, etc.
• Listings of over 200 white teas sold by numerous different tea companies, including a lot of small tea companies selling very high-quality, single-origin white tea.
• Currently, 50 reviews of white teas, and growing.
• Pages on specific varieties of white tea (currently listing seven different types, with an article on each one, and, similarly, listings and reviews of each one).
• (These are less important to me but I think others may want them) Top-rated and most-often-rated white teas on the site.

What pages are outranking RateTea?

The first search result is Wikipedia's page on white tea, which I think is a good resource and a good first result to return, although, like many Wikipedia pages, it has considerable problems and could use more work by editors. However, the second site, WhiteTeaGuide, I think pales in comparison to RateTea, in terms of usefulness and accuracy. There is not only less information on that site, but the site provides no identification of authorship, cites no sources, does not provide any contact info, and does not link to many other useful websites. It is a complete mystery to me why this site is the second result returned. The third link is to Teavana's category for white teas, and the fourth, a single, brief article on About.com (which shows no evidence of being maintained and contains two broken links). Although I can understand how Teavana's page would rank highly, none of these pages offer anywhere near the sort of exhaustive resource that the page on RateTea offers.

Many of the pages returned, including some from tea companies, have blatant misinformation about white tea, such as myths about white tea's caffeine content. An Amazon search for white teas ranks very highly on the list, but this page is just a generic listing of products, unlike RateTea which takes great care to orient the information towards tea drinkers and tea culture, providing both more informational content, and indexing each tea by particular style (like white peony, silver needle, snow buds, etc.) and by region of origin.

If you browse through past the first few pages (but long before the 11th page), some of the sites that appear in search results are even less relevant or useful. I find this rather demoralizing. It's frustrating to work so hard to create a resource which I know to be really outstanding, and which people repeatedly tell me is useful and informative, only to see it buried so deep within search results while less relevant sites are returned first.

How can you help?

Google and other search engines decide what pages to return in large part by who links to a given website. I really have no idea exactly why some of the sites are ranking higher than mine. It's particularly demoralizing to see such brief articles that aren't even being maintained being returned so close to the top, when I am painstakingly checking RateTea to keep the articles up-to-date, incorporate new information, fix broken links, etc. Google does weigh some factors (like the domain name) which could partially explain the presence of some of the less useful sites with "whitetea" in their domain names. But in the end, if you want to see RateTea's page on white tea to rank highly on a search like this, people will need to link to RateTea's page on white tea. But I don't just want you to link to RateTea's page, I want you to link to all the best pages on white tea. Link to informational websites whose information you think is the most accurate, companies selling the teas you personally believe to be the best teas, bloggers talking about tea culture, whatever pages you think would be best for an all-purpose search on white tea.

Therefore I am asking you to:

• Visit RateTea's page on white tea, and type in a search for yourself (the search results may be different if you use personalized search, so try it in a different web browser if you want a clean search), and visit some of the sites. See if you really agree with me that RateTea's page is more useful than any number of the pages returned on the first few pages of results.
• Brainstorm and search creatively for other pages on white tea.
• Publish a blog post or webpage about what you think the best top 10 search results would be for a search query on "white tea". Include live links to all the sites that you are highlighting.
• Even if you do not have a website or blog, you can still help by sharing the pages you wish to highlight on social media.

This will help restructure the search environment surrounding white tea, and help out all of the best websites on white tea. I am not going to ask you merely to link to RateTea, only to consider for yourself what sites are out there, and to publish your own top 10 ranking of what you think the best or most useful search results would be. If RateTea is on your lists, then great, but if not, then at least I know that I need to spend my time improving the page on white tea rather than working to promote it and boost its search rankings.

Thank you!

The Oxidation of Tea And Classifying Tea As Black, Green, Oolong, Etc.

When I first got into tea, my level of knowledge was a lot more basic than it is now. I had heard the standard adage "black tea is fully oxidized" and its counterpart "green tea is unoxidized". I initially thought that the different classes of tea (black, green, oolong, etc.) were characterized or defined by their levels of oxidation. I was surprised when I found teas that seemed to be exceptions to this pattern. What I found when researching more deeply was that differing levels of oxidation alone does not define or separate the different classes of tea, and that these classes are usually defined by the production process as a whole, which usually, but not always corresponds to certain differences in levels of oxidation.

Reflecting on these exceptions, and wanting to create a better resource on the topic of tea and oxidation, I recently published a new article on RateTea about the oxidation of tea, in which I go into more depth about the level of oxidation among the various tea types.

I would encourage you to take a peek at that article, and if you think it is a worthwhile resource, to consider linking to it when you need a reference on the topic of tea and oxidation. In this post though, I want to delve more into some of the specific teas that inspired me to think in more nuanced ways about oxidation, and ultimately led to that article.

Very green black tea: Darjeeling first flush:

Darjeeling is a black tea, but it often is not fully oxidized. In some cases, it is as green in color (both of leaf and brewed cup) as a number of green teas. Look at the following examples:



Pictured here are, the first two from Upton Tea Imports, Arya Estate First Flush SFTGFOP1, and Thurbo Estate TGBOP Cl/Tip First Flush, then Makaibari Estate Darjeeling 1st Flush from Arbor Teas, and last, Adagio's Darjeeling #1. I featured these teas mainly because of their visual characteristics, although I will say that I've tried the first three and they're all delicious, and they all have a greener character when brewed. The greenest character in a tea presented as a "black tea", however, was, also from Upton, Castleton Estate TGBOP Ch. First Flush; this tea produced a cup lighter in color than a typical Chinese pan-fired green tea, and barely resembled black tea at all, with a very light character and tones of mint.

Very dark green tea:

Although there are plenty of green teas that are more moderate in their color, truly dark green teas, I have found, are rarer than "black" teas which exhibit a highly green character. One particular example stands out, a large-leaf green tea, produced in Thailand from the Assamica cultivar, which I purchased from Upton tea. Here are Upton's pictures of the leaf:



As you can see in the photo, which accurately depicted the tea as I sampled it, this tea was much browner than green in color. You can read my review of this tea for more about my experience with this tea.

The color of the brewed cup was also quite dark, closer to a typical black tea than other green teas. However, there was little about this tea's flavor, aroma, or other characteristics that resembled black tea in any way. I don't have a way of objectively measuring the oxidation level of teas. I wonder if the dark color of this tea were due to oxidation, or were just due to other factors. I honestly don't know what to expect about a tea like this.

Dark white teas:

Darker white teas, like shou mei and bai mu dan (white peony), are fascinating to me because they create problems for some of the older definitions of white tea, as I explore in my post definitions of white tea: raising eyebrows.

But I have found that learning about these white teas has also taught me a lot about the role oxidation plays in tea production, and the way varying production processes impact tea's characteristics through halting or allowing oxidation. For example, the fact that white tea's production does not denature the enzymes responsible for oxidation in the way that the heating does in the case of green tea, enables white tea to oxidize more than green tea, but because the leaves are quickly dried, this process is not allowed to carry out completely. But because larger leaves contain more moisture, the larger-leaf teas oxidize more. This phenomenon also explains why certain teas like moonlight white exhibit a lighter color in years of drought: when the leaves are dry, they dry out completely more quickly during production, thus allowing for less oxidation.

What do you think?

Let me know what you think of the new article on tea and oxidation. I'd appreciate any corrections or additions if you think it can be improved. I'd also like ideas if you have specific articles (including ones you may have written) that you think would make a good addition to my list of further reading at the end of the article. And if and when you think the article is an accurate, comprehensive resource on the topic of the oxidation of tea, I'd like to ask you to link to it as a reference when you mention the oxidation of tea. Thank you in advance!

Definitions of White Tea: Raising Eyebrows

This post was inspired by a series of conversations that I had with Tony Gebely of Chicago Tea Garden and World of Tea.

Perhaps this is the mathematician in me speaking, but I believe definitions are important. Without clear, agreed-upon definitions, dialogues, conversations, buying and selling, advertisement, and a variety of other business activities and everyday activities can become problematic. In some cases, such as in the case of white tea, definitions are not straightforward.

Definitions for a class of objects become problematic not in "typical" examples of their class, but in the atypical ones. One such problematic tea is pictured here:



This is shou mei(寿眉, longevity eyebrows) tea, purchased from Ten Ren tea. I chose this particular batch of shou mei to picture because it is the darkest in color that I have ever sampled. It looks like it may be closer to gong mei (tribute eyebrows), an even darker tea that is similar in style, and rarely available in the U.S. as it is considered low-grade.

The aroma of the dry leaf of this tea is suggestive of autumn leaves, so much so that it reminds me of playing in leaf piles in fall as a child. When brewed, this aroma becomes even stronger, and it has a dark brown color, a rich, caramel-like sweetness, and an almost tannic sort of astringency. In overall character, it is a lot more like a darker oolong than most white teas, but it shares many qualities of aroma in common with white teas; lighter shou mei can be very similar to darker examples of white peony / bai mu dan.

Is shou mei a white tea?

In order to keep this post as objective as possible, I have so far avoided the claim that shou mei "is" a white tea. Some individuals, tea companies, and other sources classify it as a white tea, but there are definitions floating around, such as two I reference below, under which it would not be classified as a white tea. However, I want to start by noting an observation: I have never seen any company selling shou mei tea and classifying it as anything other than a white tea. The companies which use definitions of white tea that would exclude shou mei do not sell shou mei. If you know of an exception to this rule, let me know, but I could not find one.

This observation certainly raises eyebrows.

Now, let's explore a couple authoritative sources who would not classify shou mei as a white tea:

Tea Association of the USA:

The Tea Association of the USA defines a number of tea-related terms in their Glossary of Terms: Industry Definitions. Although not the be-all and end-all tea authority, this organization's official definition definitely carries some degree of weight. Their definition of white tea is as follows:

Proposed New Definition
The Tea Association of the USA has proposed a new definition.
In order for White Tea to be so termed it should be:

• Processed in accordance with the strict harvesting and processing guidelines originally established in Fujian Province, China
• Made from finely plucked tender shoots (buds) of Camellia sinensis, which are fired or steamed and then dried.
• There should be no withering, fermentation (oxidation) or rolling of the buds.
• The liquor of White Tea is very pale yellow in color, and mild tasting in the cup.

Now, I am going to shift to my own subjective opinions. I do not like this definition. I think it is problematic for several reasons. There is one glaring inconsistency which I point out below, but this can be easily fixed or set aside separate from the rest of the points. Besides this, the main reason I object to this definition is that I see it as too narrow, leaving many teas, including traditional Chinese white teas like shou mei, such that they could not be included in this definition.

Here are some things I dislike about this definition:

• "strict harvesting and processing guidelines" -- why give one particular method of producing tea preference over others? This comes across as possibly stifling innovation by labelling experimental processing methods as "not true white tea". I want to encourage and promote diversity in tea culture, traditions, and production, which includes both the embracing of diverse traditions, as well as the facilitation of developing new traditions. This aspect of the definition has the opposite effect.
• The definition refers to the liquor of the cup and the flavor...which are highly variable, depend on brewing methods, and are to some degree subjective, and the definition given is very constraining. Even white peony or bai mu dan, which nearly everyone agrees is a white tea, has a widely variable color and flavor. I think that in general, a good definition for a broad class of teas (like white tea, black tea, green tea, etc.) does not refer to color or flavor at all.
• This definition is internally inconsistent, depending on how you interpret words..."no withering" and "no oxidation" would actually exclude all white teas. In most usage that I've seen, "withering" refers to the normal drying process used to produce all white tea. And all white teas, including silver needle, are a tiny bit more oxidized than green teas, because they are allowed to dry naturally rather than being heated to stop all oxidation, as green teas are. This is why green teas have a more vibrant green color than white teas. The definition refers to white teas being "fired or steamed and then dried", but this specification sounds more like the processing of green tea, and this part of the definition would include green teas made from tips or leaf buds.
• (This is my biggest criticism of the definition) The "plucked tender shoots (buds)" part of the definition would leave a number of teas, such as shou mei, without a clear way of being classified as any type of tea other than just "tea".

I'm not even a member of this Tea Association, and I have no standing or authority to do so, but I vote no on this definition! Send it back to the drawing board and come back with a new definition!

Harney and Sons Guide to Tea:

Another source that carries some degree of authority is the Harney and Sons Guide to Tea; written by Michael Harney (of Harney and Sons), a major and well-respected figure in the tea community. This book has a wealth of information about tea, is well-written, and is accessible to newcomers in the tea world. How does this book define white tea? Although the book does not set out a clear definition of white tea in one place, the book talks as if there is a well-accepted definition, and from various quotes we can piece together what this definition might be. Both of these quotes are from page 19 of the book:

White tea buds are plucked and "withered" or "air dried"...

Consisting only of buds, white teas...

This remark seems to be going even further down the line of the "white tea must consist of tender shoot and leaf buds" definition that I have seen in a number of sources. "Consisting only of buds" would exclude certain teas that nearly everyone would agree is a white tea, including white peony / bai mu dan. In fact, this fact highlights an inconsistency in this book, for later, Michael Harney goes on to write a section on mai mu dan, in which he unambiguously writes from a place that Bai Mu Tan is a white tea, yet he acknowledges (p, 28):

...Bai Mu Dan also includes some mature tea leaves.

To be more accurate, there are some white teas, such as silver needle, which consist only of buds, just as there are some black teas, like Yunnan Golden Buds (dianhong jinya/滇紅金芽) which do as well. But this attribute does not define or characterize white teas as a whole.

Perhaps I am an odd sort of person, having studied so much mathematics that I want things to be logically consistent. But I do care about consistency, and I would like to encourage as many people as possible to question their definitions, and embrace definitions that do not have these sorts of problems. Perhaps the problem with Michael Harney's book is that it never clearly defines white tea, because I suspect, given Michael Harney's level of knowledge, that if he sat down and thought about this matter, he would be able to come up with a definition that did not have any of these contradictions or drawbacks.

How to define classes of teas?

So I don't claim to have all the answers, but I personally believe that a good definition for a class of tea (black, green, white, oolong, yellow, etc.) is:

• Consistent.
• Simple.
• Based on production process, not particular cultivar, not appearance or color of the cup or leaf, and certainly not flavor.
• General or flexible enough to encompass diverse traditions, to encourage innovation within the category (including styles of white tea that may not have been invented yet), and to leave out as few "problem teas" as possible.

I'm not proposing any definitions here. You can read what I have on RateTea's page on white tea. I don't claim to like my own definition; if you check the site frequently, you'll know that that page has changed and evolved as I've researched this topic. I even go back and forth on some teas...is Xue Ya (Snow Buds) a white tea or green tea? What about moonlight white (which I've seen classified as a white tea, black tea, green tea, or Pu-erh). But one thing is for sure...shou mei is a white tea, in my world.

Back to shou mei:

Why do I think this tea, so dark in color, is a white tea? The simple answer is that the production process is more similar to other white teas than to anything else: the leaves are plucked, allowed to wither naturally, and dried. There is a clear continuum of flavor and aroma from shou mei to bai mu dan to bai hao yinzhen (silver needle) and, at least to my palate, it is clear that these teas belong to the same class.

Perhaps a stronger argument is that classifying shou mei in any other category becomes more problematic. It's clearly not a black tea, there is no bruising and full oxidation process, even though it is more oxidized, and although it's dark in color, it does not remotely resemble any black teas in aroma. It also does not closely resemble green tea...it's not immediately heated the way green teas are, and it tends to retain no more green color than other white teas, and its aroma and flavor have almost none of the characteristic qualities of typical green teas. It's oolong-like in character, and shares the partial-oxidation with these teas, but there is little else that that would qualify it as an oolong. If forced into one of these categories, I can see it being treated as a green tea or oolong tea, but I think most people would agree that this wasn't a very accurate classification.

And because shou mei is not made primarily out of tips or leaf buds, a definition of white tea cannot be limited to "tippy" teas.

What do you think?

I would encourage you to propose your own definition of white tea. I don't really know how to define it, and I'd like to refine and improve on the definition I have on RateTea. The purpose of this post is mainly to step on some toes and provoke some discussion, but also to invite criticism of my own definitions and articles with the goal of refining my own definitions.

And...if you're one of those people who likes the narrower definitions of white tea, limiting it to only include teas with a large portion of tips / leaf buds, could you please answer my question: how the heck would you classify shou mei?