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“Okay, jumping on the White2Tea bandwagon here – A little late to the party, I guess. The company with the flashy and gimmicky packaging, often amusing but also frequently in bad taste. And a really...” Read full tasting note
“I had this mini sitting in the sample pile for sipdowns, etc. I held off for a while to give this a try. I can’t recall when I had received it, but here we are…I had continued this in the wee hours...” Read full tasting note
“Gongfu! This afternoon, I’m sipping down a 2023 941 sheng pu’erh mini from @white2tea that was added as a free sample to one of my orders this past year! I have a cake of, I believe, the 2022...” Read full tasting note
This year we decided to test our 941 blend for over 800 agrochemicals using the EU MRL standard and it passed. We made this blend to offer a clean, thoughtful, well-made raw Puer that is affordable for any tea drinker. We also tested our 2023 Veldt, another of our entry level raw Puer teas.
The return our our 2022 blend. Most of our blends are made to be intense in one way or another, but what if you want to casually drink Puer at the beach? This is a light and relaxing blend, easy drinking. No frills, no stress. Sweet, soft and easy. It will age beautifully, or it’s fresh sweet grass Yiwu character is a pleasure for a soft session the day it arrives. The kind of raw Puer that you could easily use to introduce new tea drinkers to the genre or ideal for a casual cup in the morning.
Okay, jumping on the White2Tea bandwagon here – A little late to the party, I guess. The company with the flashy and gimmicky packaging, often amusing but also frequently in bad taste. And a really horrible brand name. Not sure what it means, but doesn’t sound all that cool to celebrate whiteness. Especially in times of Trump and the resurgence of fascism worldwide. I was really worried I’d be wasting my time and wouldn’t like this brand, but I went ahead and took the gamble.
Well, so far so good. This is my first brew of White2Tea’s offerings, and this tea was kind of a make-or-break tea in my evaluation of the overall brand, as young raw pu-erh is my primary interest. Being their lowest-priced non-huang pian production of raw pu-erh, this one really needed to be a winner for me to be happy. White2Tea’s prices overall seem to run roughly 2X what I typically would pay for tea, so I’m expecting I should be able to enjoy these teas about 2X more than usual, or else forget it. I’m already really happy with Yunnan Sourcing and I’ll stick mainly with them if that is the case. But would be nice to have an alternative brand to change things up ocassionally.
This tea being their “budget” offering of raw pu-erh, it is still kind of pricey in my book, as it is running roughly $65/lb which is expensive by my standards. I’ve bought teas at $40 or $50/pound which I’ve thought were pretty darn fancy.
I am pleased to be pleasantly surprised so far, as this 2023 941 mini is a winner, in my book.
At $1 per 7-gram pearl, I can afford to drink this every day and it has a flavor profile which delivers the kind of things I want from a raw pu-erh. It also works well brewing with my hybrid “Dave-Fu” method. Brewed at 205° in 16 oz glass mug for 1 minute on first steep, and 195°at 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes on subsequent steeps. The fourth steep was maybe a little bit closer to dirty dishwater than I would like, but maybe I can play with the parameters a bit and see if I can smooth that out. If I can get three good steeps using my method, I’m a happy camper, and a fourth one would be icing on the cake. Don’t need more than that.
“Sweet grass” as described by vendor is an apt description, and I would add that I get some of those cotton candy notes that I enjoy plus hints of apricots, and some light and fuzzy florals, perhaps dandelions to go along with the grassy theme. The tea has a good amount of astringency with some light bitterness which don’t detract, but help to keep the tea interesting throughout your brews. I would consider this good everyday pu-erh for sure.
I had this mini sitting in the sample pile for sipdowns, etc. I held off for a while to give this a try. I can’t recall when I had received it, but here we are…I had continued this in the wee hours of Saturday. I hadn’t slept very well (my dreams have been strange lately. I’ve been having “what if” dreams where I went into different fields of study during college and the type of careers I could’ve had, had I chosen an alternative field during college. I’ve also been dreaming of old friends, etc.) and I decided that the best time to wake up, despite having gone to bed after work around 01:00, was at 05:30. After hitting the tea some more, I realized my error, sipping on an empty stomach. I quickly tossed back a fruit smoothie and finished off the leaf.
To my surprise – there sat a little tea being, sharing their own bowl. Perhaps my imagination got the best of me or perhaps there are ‘tea people’ who wait their whole lives to venture into their own cup. Luckily, I was there to capture the moment.
Gongfu!
This afternoon, I’m sipping down a 2023 941 sheng pu’erh mini from @white2tea that was added as a free sample to one of my orders this past year! I have a cake of, I believe, the 2022 production of this raw pu’erh and though I’ve only steeped it a few times I recall really enjoying the soft and sweeter taste and texture. It’s one of those “nail on the head” teas in regard to appealing to my penchat for Yiwu productions.
From memory, this mini is expectedly quite similar with a really gentle overall profile and light notes of dewy fresh pears, snow peas, and a mellow grassy and hay-like midsip that anchors the orchard fruit and cooling vegetal notes. Almost a creamy finish, especially in the late session. However, as most of the more sugary notes sit in the front half of the sip, it’s a creamy tail end that lacks sweetness. If I didn’t have a cake of the 2022 material I could totally see myself adding a few more minis of this to my next order…
Tea Photos: https://www.instagram.com/p/C4TsxeGO7s7/?img_index=1
Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l81HZfkLwpk
For whatever it’s worth; Paul (the owner of w2t) has been pretty publicly anti-fascism, anti-Trump, and anti-capitalist. Before he started w2t he was studying visual art and he designs all the cake wraps himself. So even though some of the tea names/wrappers are fairly brazen and outlandish, there’s actually quite a few that are really thinly veiled tongue-in-cheek reflections of his views too.
This is one of my favourites: https://white2tea.com/products/2016-we-go-high?pos=1&psq=we+go+high&ss=e&v=1.0
As well as this one: https://white2tea.com/products/2020-good-man-in-a-storm?pos=2&_sid=0644af02f&ss=r
Supposedly the name of the company comes from a conversation he had where someone in China was teasing him for being a white guy so passionate about tea. Something like “too white to drink tea” which eventually because “white2tea”.
He’s not the main focus of this older article, but there is some interesting stuff in it about his background and philosophy towards how he sells his products: https://www.saveur.com/pu-erh-chinese-tea/
Sorry for the info dump – I just feel like it’s easy to miss some of those details about the company if you’re not looking for them or on the same social platforms he’s active on.
Thank you for sharing that, Ros! I have never ordered from them, but I will soon! I am late to the party, too.
@Roswell Strange, Thanks, I just knew there had to be more to the story! Can’t say as I’ve ever tried any w2t products, tho’ I may explore some samplers in time. But I need to focus on appreciating the puers that I’ve already got on hand.
**eventually became
Because of Ros’ reply, I did a bit more reading and found Paul’s blog, which has a lot of useful information that I’ve only begun to explore. Including this backstory post ( https://white2tea.com/blogs/blog/15-years-in-china ) and a preceding one on his charitable giving, relevant to the OP by Keemunlover. Very interesting and informative!
Thanks for the replies, Ros, Ashmanra, and TeaEarlGreyHot. I didn’t mean to beat up on Paul too much! I haven’t researched him very much, but I am sure he must be a pretty awesome guy if he is so obsessed about Chinese teas. Just giving the initial impressions I have of the brand and explaining my trepidation in giving it a shot. And my concerns as far as my personal “value proposition” relationship to the brand.