June 2025
Fuding White Tea
This month’s curation highlights three of the four classic white tea types—Bai Hao Yin Zhen, Bai Mu Dan, and Shou Mei—all from Fuding, Fujian, China’s most renowned white tea region. While rooted in tradition, most of these selections offer a unique twist on their classic styles. Bai Hao Yin Zhen, the highest grade of white tea, is made exclusively from hand-plucked buds. Traditionally kept as loose leaf, this 2019 Bai Hao Yin Zhen was instead compressed into 100-gram cakes for easier aging and storage. Our 2022 Wild Mu Dan Wang (“Peony King”) represents the pinnacle of Bai Mu Dan. Harvested from wild, untended tea gardens where the tea bushes have grown freely for decades without pruning or fertilization, this tea yields a complex flavor and a captivating aroma. Both the Bai Hao Yin Zhen and Wild Mu Dan Wang—of which only a few kilograms remain—were specially sourced by us in 2022 and have since been carefully aged in our private collection for the past three years, until now. The final two teas in this box are Shou Mei tea biscuits from 2021, harvested in both spring and autumn by the same skilled producer. The spring version is blended with chen pi (aged tangerine peel), introducing a gentle citrus note that brightens the mellow, rounded profile of this four-year-aged Shou Mei.
