The Natural Beauty of Craftsmanship
Mainstream accounts suggest that the process for White Tea originated in Fujian. However, under similar social backgrounds and developmental stages, could it be that other regions independently developed similar processes or early prototypes of white Tea, such as in Yunnan, the birthplace of tea? Yunnan is geographically remote, and many developments there were unknown to the central plains. For instance, Pu'er tea underwent a thousand years of development before becoming known to the central plains during the Ming Dynasty and gaining fame across the country only in the Qing Dynasty.
Similarly, could other teas from Yunnan have undergone similar development, such as white tea? These processes may have risen and fallen throughout the history of Yunnan's ancient tea industry, with some disappearing and others being preserved in more remote mountainous areas or ethnic minority settlements, existing for hundreds or even thousands of years without widespread recognition. Could white tea also have followed this path?
White Tea, Naturally Born
“White tea, one of the six major categories of Chinese Tea, is made by picking leaves and then sun-drying or air-drying them without undergoing the processes of pan-firing or rolling. It is characterized by intact buds covered in fine hairs, a fresh aroma of these hairs, clear yellow-green liquor, and a mild, sweet aftertaste. It is a minimally processed tea.” Based on nearly 20 years of experience in tea production, I propose: “White tea is a tea that undergoes spontaneous fermentation. Yunnan white tea is a tea that undergoes deep spontaneous fermentation.” In short, “White tea is a tea obtained through drying; Yunnan white tea is a tea dried slowly and naturally in the shade.”
In my search for tea, I often heard elders in the Lancang River area recount: “…the use of secondary products in processing led to the discovery of a unique style. Further research resulted in a type of tea centered around ‘spreading out' (air-drying). Due to its simplicity and ease of learning, this method spread widely and continues to this day.” Yunnan enjoys abundant sunshine, and drying in the sun is the most direct and simple method. However, the sun is not always available, and air-drying can also serve as an effective means of drying. When it was not possible to dry in the sun, people would air-dry instead, gradually developing air-drying as a supplement to, and sometimes even surpassing, sun-drying. This led to the special process of Yunnan white tea, which involves “air-drying instead of sun-drying.”
A Discussion on the Withering Process of White Tea
The process of making white tea is naturally formed, involving only two steps: “withering – drying.” “Spreading out” refers to laying out the fresh tea leaves thinly, cooling them, and allowing them to lose water and dry evenly. This process has the function of “withering” in modern tea-making science.
There are various understandings of withering, but I summarize it as the key factor determining the style of the tea. Withering is the process of laying out fresh tea leaves uniformly under certain temperature, humidity, and oxygen conditions, allowing them to breathe naturally and smoothly after being separated from the plant. During the continuation of their vegetative life, the activity of enzymes in the fresh leaves is moderately promoted, leading to appropriate physical and chemical changes in the internal substances. Some of the water is lost, reducing the moisture content, softening the stems and leaves, reducing bitterness and astringency, breaking down astringent substances, improving palatability, eliminating grassy odors, making the aroma mellow, highlighting floral notes, and gradually forming fruity aromas, fully showcasing the aroma of the tea variety.
Freshly picked tea leaves contain up to 75% to 80% water. Although they have been separated from the mother plant, they remain highly active, and aerobic respiration continues to provide energy, generating increasing heat. If the heat cannot be quickly dissipated while aerobic respiration turns into anaerobic respiration, the fresh leaves will undergo intense fermentation under high temperature, high humidity, and high activity. Therefore, the fresh leaves should be immediately spread out thinly and evenly to avoid piling up too thickly.
Depending on speed and degree, withering can be divided into “light withering,” “moderate withering,” “heavy withering,” “super heavy withering,” and “ultra-fast withering.” Generally, the first three types of withering are used. In making Yunnan white tea, I found that the withering is much heavier than in other teas. It is precisely this super heavy withering that creates the distinctive black and white appearance of Moonlight White and the sweet, mellow, and fruit-rich flavor of Yunnan white tea. This type of super heavy withering is widely applied in actual production in Yunnan.
Super heavy withering occurs after the vegetative life characteristics of the fresh leaves have completely disappeared and when the moisture content is moderate: the cell walls and membranes rupture, the cellular fluid leaks out, and the tea juice spreads within the leaves, leading to aerobic fermentation, i.e., oxidation and decomposition. Under the seemingly unchanged exterior, intense reactions are taking place.
The tea juice gradually oxidizes, turning the backside of the fresh leaves yellow, red, and eventually black, while the side with the fine hairs loses water and becomes white and shiny. Only thorough oxidation can eliminate the green spots and create a clear black and white contrast, resulting in a sweet and fragrant tea that embodies the harmony of heaven and earth. This is the difference between the withering of traditional Yunnan white tea and that of other white teas, creating its unique style.
Regarding the withering of white tea, I have summarized a table based on my years of practice (see Table 1), hoping to stimulate further discussion.
Sun withering (or solar withering) typically occurs under conditions of high moisture, high temperature, high oxygen, high activity, and strong direct heat, making it extremely fast with very noticeable changes. Therefore, the duration should not be too long, and the thickness of the fresh leaves should not be too thin or too thick. The thickness of the spread-out fresh leaves should be adjusted according to the weather on any given day. Compared to other types of withering, in terms of the speed of withering changes, this can be categorized as “ultra-fast withering.” It is fast, softens the fresh leaves quickly, and produces visible results, but due to the influence of many uncontrollable factors, it is difficult to control in practice, and the results are not particularly satisfactory. As a result, its application is decreasing in today's scientific and technological context. However, the combination of withering and drying remains a long-standing method of tea production.
The combination of sun withering and sun drying requires particular attention to the thickness of the fresh leaves to prevent the transition to anaerobic fermentation under conditions of high temperature, high humidity, high activity, and strong direct heat. This production method, which combines withering and drying using the sun, directly utilizes readily available resources to produce tea. From a developmental perspective, this method should have been widely practiced historically. However, whether the tea produced in this way should be classified as “white tea” or “sun-dried Green Tea” is still subject to further discussion. Such a production method logically should predate the invention of the “pan-firing” process. Modern “sun-dried green tea” has fully adopted the pan-firing technique, so if we classify this method as “sun-dried green tea,” it should belong to “primitive sun-dried green tea.”
Understanding the mechanism of withering and the factors influencing it, people gradually moved from unintentional to intentional action, transforming the uncontrollable into something controllable. They began artificial withering, using various human interventions to regulate the process, including adjusting temperature, humidity, wind, oxygen, and employing various modern technologies. Under special circumstances, extreme ultra-fast withering might even be created. Withering could very well be one of the earliest processes in the systematic understanding of tea production.
Humidifying withering is uncommon and mostly appears in Y