White Night

I had been looking forward to trying a White Night/Moonlight for a while, since it sounded very interesting and has the characteristics of some of my favorite teas. It didn’t disappoint!

Dry leaves: Cream colored tips and chocolaty brown leaves. The dry aroma is similar to dian hong, but slightly more muted with a mildly lavender scent and a slight sheng pu’erh mustiness.

Early steeps: Mild and sweet with flavors of lavender, yam, and white grape with slight marine qualities. The taste reminds me of a very soft golden needle, but has a mouthfeel more like a sheng pu.

Later steeps: A sweet greenness appears that reminds me of guapan or Taiwanese oolongs. Slight mushroom flavor, and VERY creamy.

This tea had a WHOLE LOT of qi for me. Very warm, sleepy, and medatative, and strong feelings along my eyebrows, forehead, and spine. I haven’t been this tea-drunk in quite a while :P

What a fascinating tea!

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I placed my first order with Mandala Tea, and all arrived quickly, nicely packaged and with extra sample tea as well. I had heard good things about Mandala, and Garret (the owner) and myself had exchanged a few emails through discussions here on Steepster. I am just amazed at the friendly, courteous and interesting people that make up the tea community in MN, and am glad that they have sellers like Mandala and Verdant Tea to introduce them to fine Chinese tea!

The White Night tea is like nothing I have ever tried before. It has the familiar earthiness that you find in Yunnan green and pu’erh teas, but is so light and sweet with an ethereal aroma. In German they say “Himmel und Erde,” or “Heaven and Earth,” which is truly what this tea brings to mind. And each time I thought my gaiwan of leaves could yield no more, another steep proved me wrong. The first 5 steepings were amazing, the next three still were very good, before I decided to retire the leaves to the compost bin.

Thank you for showing me how a white tea can have as much complexity and full bodied flavor, and need not be simply subtle and light.