Novices storing Tea fear the most that the tea leaves will spoil, which is also a taboo in the tea community. Improper storage of White Tea can lead to its deterioration. Once white tea spoils, its aroma becomes pungent, the tea soup becomes thin, bitter, and has an off-flavor. Drinking such tea makes you feel as though your tongue has been abused, leaving it bitter and astringent, causing considerable discomfort. There are many reasons for white tea to spoil, such as exposure to light, moisture, odors, and high temperatures, all of which can trigger spoilage. Regardless of the cause, we must avoid them.

The most common reason for white tea to spoil is due to dampness, such as when the tea's own moisture content does not meet standards, starting from within or when the room where the tea is stored is excessively humid, allowing the white tea to absorb moisture. It could also be because you failed to reseal the package promptly upon opening it. These situations can have a significant impact on the white tea itself. To determine if white tea has become damp, we can examine three aspects: the dryness of the dry tea, its aroma, and taste.
A white tea you receive should first be inspected for its dryness. Using Silver Needle as an example, dry tea that meets standards is firm and robust. Its needle tip has a distinct prickly feel. When the bud is bent, it snaps easily. If the Silver Needle has insufficient dryness, the buds are soft and lack strength. Touching the needle tip lacks the hard, prickly feel, and bending it is difficult to snap.

Smelling the dry tea is also a way to judge if the white tea's quality is normal. What is the aroma of a normal white tea? Let's start with new tea. When new tea meets dryness standards, its aroma is dry and fresh, smelling like dried reeds or dried calamus leaves. For teas like Silver Needle, which have abundant down, their downy aroma is rich, similar to the scent of dry grass. After aging, the dry tea aroma gradually changes, becoming more mature. The main aromas are medicinal, aged, and rice straw, gradually replacing the downy aroma and dried reed scent. If white tea accidentally gets damp during storage and molds, what would be the smell?
The first is moldy smell. The appearance of a moldy smell can directly announce the death of the white tea. A moldy smell is a very pungent odor, heavy and nauseating.
The second is an acidic smell. The appearance of an acidic smell indicates that your white tea has also molded. The production of an acidic smell occurs when you fail to seal the white tea tightly in time, allowing some microorganisms in the air to fall into the white tea and participate in chemical changes. For example, under the influence of Sugar microorganisms, sugars produce secondary metabolites such as lactic acid and acetic acid, resulting in an acidic smell. If your white tea has an acidic smell, it means that the tea no longer has any value for drinking.

How do you determine if white tea has molded 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 vintages of tea may differ slightly in taste. The most distinctive feature of new tea is that the tea soup is sweet, accompanied by a strong fresh and refreshing sensation. This mainly comes from the rich internal substances of white tea. New white tea has a high amino acid content, making it very refreshing in the mouth.
The overall mouthfeel of aged white tea is full-bodied, smooth, and more substantial. Upon tasting, it is smooth, gentle, sweet, and mellow. However, after dampness, the aged white tea loses its original smoothness, Sweetness, and fullness, being replaced by bitterness and thinness. It also carries a heavy, pungent odor, providing no sense of pleasure when consumed.

If, during the storage of white tea, the dry tea becomes moist, resilient, and difficult to break, the aroma undergoes a significant change, producing an off-flavor, the tea soup develops a moldy or acidic smell, and the broth becomes thin and bitter, these are all signals released by spoiled white tea. (Source: Understanding Tea, Image Source: Tea Friends Network Image Library)