Newcomers to Tea storage fear the most the deterioration of their leaves, a practice much frowned upon in tea circles. Improper storage of White Tea can lead to its spoilage. Once spoiled, the aroma becomes pungent, the infusion turns thin and bitter with an off-flavor. Drinking such tea feels like a punishment to the tongue – bitter, astringent, and thoroughly uncomfortable. Many factors can cause the spoilage of white tea, including light exposure, moisture, odd smells, and high temperatures. We must avoid all these at all costs.

The most frequent reason for the spoilage of white tea is dampness. This could be due to the tea's own inadequate moisture content, causing it to become damp from within, or the room where the tea is stored being excessively humid, allowing the tea to absorb moisture. It could also be that you failed to reseal the package promptly after opening it. All these scenarios can significantly impact the tea. To determine if your white tea has become damp, you can consider three aspects: dryness of the tea, aroma, and taste.

Upon receiving a batch of white tea, first inspect the dryness level. Using Silver Needle as an example, dryness-compliant Silver Needle is firm and rigid, with a distinct prickly feel at the tip. When bent, it snaps easily. If the moisture content is insufficient, the bud will be soft and lacking strength. Touching the tip won't give you that firm, prickly sensation, and trying to break it in half will prove difficult.

The aroma of dry tea is another indicator of the quality of white tea. What should the aroma of normal white tea be? Let's start with fresh tea. Fresh tea with adequate dryness has a dry, refreshing scent reminiscent of dried reed leaves or dried calamus. For teas like Silver Needle with abundant downy hair, the aroma is particularly strong, similar to the smell of dried grass. After aging, the dry tea aroma gradually changes, becoming more mature. Mainly medicinal, aged, and rice aroma gradually replace the downy hair and reed leaf scents. What would be the smell if the white tea accidentally became damp or mouldy during storage?
First, there is the mouldy smell, which directly signals the death of the white tea. The mouldy smell is very pungent, suffocating, and nauseating.
Second, there is the sour smell, indicating that your white tea has also moulded. The sour smell is produced when you fail to seal the white tea properly, allowing some microorganisms in the air to contaminate the tea and participate in chemical reactions. For instance, under the influence of Sugar microorganisms, sugars produce secondary metabolites such as lactic acid and acetic acid, resulting in a sour smell. If your white tea develops a sour smell, it means the tea has lost its value for consumption.

How do we determine if white tea has moulded based on taste? First, we need to know what normal white tea tastes like. Normal white tea provides a comfortable, clean, and refreshing mouthfeel. Different vintage teas have slightly varying tastes. The most distinctive feature of fresh tea is its Sweetness, accompanied by a rich and fresh sensation. This primarily stems from the abundance of internal substances in white tea, with a high amino acid content that makes it delightfully refreshing in the mouth.
The overall taste of aged white tea is full-bodied, smooth, and richer. Upon entry, it feels silky, gentle, sweet, and mellow. However, after becoming damp, the aged white tea loses its original smoothness, sweetness, and fullness, replaced instead by bitterness, astringency, and thinness. It also carries a suffocating, pungent odor, providing no pleasure in the mouth.
If, during the storage of white tea, the dry tea becomes moist, gains flexibility, and cannot be broken, if the aroma undergoes significant change and produces off-flavors, and if the infusion exhibits a mouldy or sour smell, is thin and bitter, these are all signals that the white tea has spoiled.

Source: Fuding White Tea Selection, information shared for educational purposes. If copyright issues arise, please contact us for removal.