Skip to main content

Bai Hao Yin Zhen white tea review - MastersTeas.com

I’ve been reviewing some tea samples I got from MastersTeas.com and this is the only white tea I got from them.

Today I’m reviewing Bai Hao Yin Zhen white tea.


From the website:

Made up of the youngest, fuzzy, plump buds, our 2020 Bai Hao Yin Zhen, otherwise known as Silver Needle, hails from the Fuding area of China. Its dry aroma is quite floral, and the leaves are a lovely silvery green. Once brewed the light honey-colored liquor offers flavor notes of honeydew, fresh sweet cucumber and a slight hint of mineral.

About the leaves:

Grown at an elevation of around 450 meters above sea level, our 2020 Bai Hao Yin Zhen was hand-plucked in April from 5-10 year old trees. Consisting of only 6 cm long buds, it is a Fuding big tea leaf cultivar. After harvesting the buds go through a special withering process until about 90% of the moisture is gone. It is then roasted at around 60 degrees Celsius for two hours.

This tea contains a low level of caffeine
Steep at 170° for 2-3 minutes.


I first brewed this according to the website, Western style. I brewed 0.6 grams of tea in 100 mL of 170°F/76°C water for 3 minutes for the first steep, 4 minutes for the second steep.

I don’t often taste what’s written on the website description, but this time I totally did.

The tea was very light in color, almost like water. When I first tasted it, the mineral taste was the strongest flavor, but then I could taste something like salted cucumber with a light melon flavor, I don’t know if it’s really honeydew but it’s definitely not a cantaloupe flavor. The second steep was almost as strong as the first steep.


Then I tried it gongfu style. I brewed 4 grams of tea in 100 mL of 170°F/76°C water for 20 seconds, and each successive steep increased in 10 second increments.

The first steep had a strong mineral flavor, with hardly any cucumber and no melon flavor.

The second steep had less of a mineral flavor and more cucumber. The taste was also just faintly grassy.

The third steep had even strong cucumber flavor, and a little bit of melon—definitely honeydew melon, not cantaloupe or some other melon flavor. The melon flavor wasn’t sweet, and it had a faintly floral scent like honeydew does.

The fourth steep had a slightly lighter flavor, but definitely more honeydew flavor coming out.

Final thoughts: This tea had great complexity and nuances of flavor that I’ve never tasted in the few white teas I’ve tried using gongfu method. This was an amazing white tea and I can highly recommend it.


Comments

Anne Payne said…
I love white tea but most of the ones I've seen have a lot of caffeine. Do you know if these come in decaf?
Camy Tang said…
Hi Anne,
White teas have the least amount of caffeine of all teas, except for those that have been decaffeinated. But in general, mostly black teas (sometimes green teas) are decaffeinated. I've never actually heard of a decaffeinated white tea since many people drink white tea specifically because it has less caffeine. However white tea doesn't have zero caffeine, and even decaffeinated teas have a little bit of caffeine. So if you're looking for something without any caffeine, you're probably better off trying rooibos tea and other herbal teas.

Popular Posts

No Cold Bums toilet seat cover

Captain's Log, Stardate 08.22.2008 I actually wrote out my pattern! I was getting a lot of hits on my infamous toilet seat cover , and I wanted to make a new one with “improvements,” so I paid attention and wrote things down as I made the new one. This was originally based off the Potty Mouth toilet cover , but I altered it to fit over the seat instead of the lid. Yarn: any worsted weight yarn, about 120 yards (this is a really tight number, I used exactly 118 yards. My suggestion is to make sure you have about 130 yards.) I suggest using acrylic yarn because you’re going to be washing this often. Needle: I used US 8, but you can use whatever needle size is recommended by the yarn you’re using. Gauge: Not that important. Mine was 4 sts/1 inch in garter stitch. 6 buttons (I used some leftover shell buttons I had in my stash) tapestry needle Crochet hook (optional) Cover: Using a provisional cast on, cast on 12 stitches. Work in garter st until liner measures...

Toilet seat cover

Captain’s Log, Supplemental Update August 2008: I wrote up the pattern for this with "improvements"! Here's the link to my No Cold Bums toilet seat cover ! Okay, remember a few days ago I was complaining about the cold toilet seat in my bathroom? Well, I decided to knit a seat cover. Not a lid cover, but a seat cover. I went online and couldn’t find anything for the seat, just one pattern for the lid by Feminitz.com . However, I took her pattern for the inside edge of the lid cover and modified it to make a seat cover. Here it is! It’s really ugly stitch-wise because originally I made it too small and had to extend it a couple inches on each side. I figured I’d be the one staring at it, so who cared if the extension wasn’t perfectly invisible? I used acrylic yarn since, well, that’s what I had, and also because it’s easy to wash. I’ll probably have to wash this cover every week or so, but it’s easy to take off—I made ties which you can see near the back of the seat. And...

What Is a Brutus Cut? A Regency Hair Trend Inspired by Ancient Rome

Regency Haircuts and Disguises in Lady Wynwood’s Spies In this excerpt from Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 8: Traitor , Phoebe prepares for a dangerous mission—one that requires her to disguise herself as a young man. The hairstyle she receives, called a Brutus cut, was actually quite fashionable during the Regency. Read on to find out more about this curious trend and why it suited her new identity so well. Excerpt from Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 8: Traitor : By far, the absolute worst part of Uncle Sol’s plan was that Phoebe had to cut her hair. Of the four agents, Phoebe and Mr. Coulton-Jones would be the least likely to be recognized when they entered the Ramparts building—Mr. Coulton-Jones, because of his skill in altering his facial features and his posture, and Phoebe, because she could play a convincing young man, which no one would expect. A disreputable hat would hide her long hair to an extent, but it would not fool anyone who looked closely. Also, because she would lo...

Free Christian Romantic Suspense Novels by Camy Tang / Camille Elliot

Curious about what my writing is like? Here’s a list of all my free books and the free short stories, novellas, and novels that you can read here on my blog. I’ll update this post as I add more free reads. Christian Romantic Suspense: Necessary Proof (Sonoma series #4.1, novella) Click here to buy the FREE ebook on all retailers Alex Villa became a Christian in prison, and because of his efforts to help stop a gang producing meth in Sonoma, he has been set up for the death of a cop. Can computer expert Jane Lawton find the evidence that will prove his innocence before the gang eliminates them both? Fantasy short stories: Pixies in a Garden in Kyoto There were pixies in the garden. Since she was in Kyoto, she was certain they were not called pixies, but she didn't know what they would be called in Japanese, and they certainly looked like what she imagined pixies would look like. The King’s Daughter The trees in the King's garden were full of colored pixie lights. The...

Meet the Dashing Spy on the Cover of Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 3

If you enjoy clean historical suspense with slow-burn romance and a touch of danger, you’ll love my Lady Wynwood’s Spies series! It’s a multi-volume Christian Regency serial following a group of unlikely aristocrats battling a dangerous conspiracy in 1811 London. Today, I wanted to give you a behind-the-scenes look at one of my favorite covers in the series— Volume 3: Aggressor. Who is that handsome gentleman? The model on the cover represents Mr. Michael Coulton-Jones, one of my main characters. This clever spy with a tortured past finally gets the cover spotlight in this volume, which is one of my favorite covers because the model is so handsome. 😄 I absolutely love this cover model! His name is Anatolii and here’s the original stock photo . It was really tough to try to decide which photo to use for the cover! It was a tossup between him and the main heroine, Miss Phoebe Sauber, for the cover for book 1, but I eventually went with Phoebe. Then in book 2, he was kind of...