White Tea :
White tea is a poorly defined category. The term “white tea”
first appeared in a monograph entitled “A Grand Overview on
Tea” which was written by emperor Hui Zhong of the Song
Dynasty in 1107 AD. The emperor mistakenly thought a
weakened mutant of tea plant with delicate light-colored
leaves which had lost its ability to reproduce to be a rare
species of tea trees. Nowadays, white tea is produced from
the same tea leaves as those used for green tea, black tea
and oolong tea, but without heat inactivation. The
manufacturing methods vary. One popular protocol of
production is to let the fresh tea leaves air-dry at 28-30º
C in 65-70% relative humidity for 34-38 hours to reduce
their water contents to 14-16% in dry weight. Then the
leaves are hand-selected and further dried in low heat or
under the sun. Since the polyphenol oxidase of the tea
leaves has not been inactivated, the tea catechins in white
tea undergo continuous oxidation at uncontrolled rates
during production and storage. Its residual EGCG levels vary
widely and are generally very low in the samples purchased
on the market.
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