White Peony Tea Cake

White Peony Tea Cake｜白牡丹茶餅

 Tasting notes: Muscatel, honey, soy milk
 Origin: Fuding, Fujian, China
 Cultivar: 福鼎大白 Fuding Dabai
 Elevation: 620m
 Oxidation: ⦿⦿○○○

This aged White Peony Tea Cake makes for a precious gift, a compact travel companion or a long-term treasure. It is a delightfully fresh-tasting tea, with a honey-like viscosity and a muscatel flavour that mellows and deepens with age. We even taste something akin to soy milk in this tea! Our top grade tea cakes are made and pressed in Fujian, the birthplace of white tea.

For centuries, tea has been pressed into cakes for practical reasons like storage and transportation. It also makes it ideal for ageing. Our White Peony Tea Cakes have already been aged for two years.

We find that fresh white teas taste more astringent and green, then get sweeter and mellower over time. To experience the difference ageing makes for yourself, try some of this cake straight away, then after a year, two years and five years. It’s helpful to take notes each time so you can look back and see the difference in flavour over time.

What is White Peony tea?
Loved for its sweet fragrance and herbaceous flavour, White Peony (白牡丹 Bai Mudan) is the second picking grade of white tea after Silver Needle (purely buds), and comprises one plump bud and two leaves. The high proportion of white furry buds gives the tea a sweet, succulent flavour and plenty of nutrients.

Why is it called White Peony? 
There are a few theories: some people say it was common for tea traders to name teas after flowers, and peonies symbolise wealth in China. Others say it’s because the one-bud-two-leaves picking standard looks like the shape of a flower. And still others say it’s named after its floral fragrance. 

Read: Tea 101: All about white tea

teaCLUB members get 10% off!