Yunnan Yue Guang Bai Air-Dried White Tea

Also known as “Moonlight White”, this review is for the Spring 2021 harvest.

This tea has great bag appeal with a malty smell and a combination of fuzzy white tips and flatter dark leaves. The soup is malty and sweet, though delicate and on the weaker side so you’ll want to use more than some other white teas. It has medium body, no bitterness and very mild astringency with a slight peony aroma. It is very easy to drink but does not pack a punch if that is what you are looking for. Overall, I enjoyed this tea as it is great to session throughout the day since it is easy to drink and has a lower caffeine content.

I brewed it in a 140ml clay teapot and poured 100ml cups. I drink the wash, so my first brew time is longer to begin with:

6g, boiling: 45, 35, 40, 45, 1m.

At the 1min brew and later, the tea begins to get weak.

I tried the autumn 2016 version of this tea. It was refreshing and vaguely fruity; a pleasant enough tea, but not especially memorable. It has no strong spinach-y notes or other flavours likely to be objectionable, so it’s probably a good introductory white tea.

It is also very fluffy. I put together a tea sample pack for a friend recently as a holiday gift, and included this tea. A mere 10g of it fit into a size of jar that held an average of 18g of most other teas, and 32g of a more finely chopped tea.