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Hi all,

I'm new to the forum and to the world of loose leaf tea. I've recently picked up a starter set and some loose leaf white tea for gongfu brewing. I've done some research and gathered starter information to ease myself into quality teas.

I received the loose tea I ordered online and have to say that I am less than happy with what I received. I wanted to check in with you guys to see what your expectations are when you buy loose leaf tea. Being a new member, maybe my expectations are too high.

So I purchased 100g of Pai Mu Tan and 100g of Silver Needle. I expected the Pai Mu Tan to consist of a mixture of a bud and 2 new leaves. My expectations are that the leaves are full leaves, or at least close to full sized leaves. However what I received were shards and leaves that were smashed up into tiny pieces. I emptied the content for inspection and found it very hard to find any decent looking leaves at all. This is not what I image a premium loose leaf tea is. I would class this as being just above premium teabag quality. Although it's not a powder, it is extremely dusty and the majority of weight is made up of tiny pieces of leaf chippings or shards. Am i being too critical? or am i right to expect a fuller leaf? I did try brewing it a various degrees and at varying infustion lengths. No matter what way I brewed, I found the tea to be very bitter - not at all what I had read nor what I was expecting.

The Silver needle was a bit better, purchased from a different supplier. It was sold as premium also, but I'm not so sure it was. There was a noticable difference however between both white teas.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Am i being too fussy? or in your experience, would you guys expect more?

Thanks for reading
Carl

Hi Carl,

Pai Mu Tan is more frequently called Bai Mudan or White Peony. Sometimes you can fine truly whole leaves but other times what you get may be flaked off of a pressed cake, which results in broken leaves. Broken leaves are normal and acceptable from a pressed cake. Bai Mudan generally gets better with age so it is sometimes pressed into cakes for easier long term storage (this is how my Bai Mudan is).

I think you have a valid complaint if the vendor displayed whole leaves on their site and you received mostly broken leaves. If not, you may have received Bai Mudan from a cake, which is probably just fine.

HTH

Hi Carl,

what you can do is, to take a picture and post it here. It's hard to say how much leafs are actually broken by text description , visual is better. You can also send the same query to the vendor. The thing is, that parcel ( especially EMS 2kg , as I assume has been shipped to you ) has been bounced all over the place when going it's journey to your country. So it's very possible that happened during the transfer. From what you describing, there was no any other hard object in the parcel which could cause the damage inside so the box had gone trough the serious hits. From 10-20kg box ( which you receive from producer ) there is between 0.5 -1kg of broken leafs and dust which good vendor separate by strainer if comes to selling the tea from that bottom part. But if you ordered it from somebody who employs some people , they might not care about that and packed in what has left in the box. Some CN vendors can't speak / write English so rather give u this instead writing they have not good leafs left. Since they want to fulfill the order , rather than cancel it ( since cant offer anything instead due to lack of communication ). Some of them actually even don't care , I come across this attitude in our market a lot when tried to make remote tea selling. Had to give up this concept, not working, at least not in Kunming. You need to do it your self.

Speak of the needles : You might try use bottled water , some variations. I know you guys in Ireland drink right from the tap , I lived in Dublin for 12 years , so bit familiar with tea concept there as well Hope u didnt add the milk ) ..just kidin;-)
Your tea is getting bitter coz it's steeping to fast ( small leafs releasing "juice" much faster ..like a teabag ) , u might need to put less in brewing vessel and do quick (few seconds) steeps.
Also temperature for white teas is better lower , unless you want to test exact quality by extreme conditions lie vendors do when purchasing the tea. ( cupping , long steeping, high temp. )
There was a tea shop on Ormond quay lower - Dublin ( don't know if u r from D ) , run by Slovakian, u can try their tea to compare , ask how to prepare it in local conditions. It's in the basement.

Slán go fóill