eBay has me confused - Bai Mu Dan vs Shoumei ?

[gaaah]

The Bai Mu Dan I always seek is the traditional style with all brown oxidized leaves. Currently, I can't seem to find the loose leaf style of this anywhere, and user Bok kindly left this link in another post to help me understand why:

https://www.theoolongdrunk.com/single-p ... -white-tea

However, I believe I did recently find my brown Bai Mu Dan in ball form, pictured.

What's confusing me is that my usual Hong Kong supplier markets this as Bai Mu Dan, but on eBay, virtually all the retailers (currently) list it as Shoumei.

I think I know what Shoumei is like, but I've had only one example --enough to know I don't care for it. It has much bigger leaves and a harder, more earthy, bitter taste than Bai Mu Dan.
Whatever is pictured, which I love, has a more mellow, rounded, raisin-y taste with a floral note, and virtually no bitterness.

So what exactly am I drinking?

tea.jpg (176.99 KiB) Viewed 7818 times

[belewfripp]

The Bai Mu Dan I always seek is the traditional style with all brown oxidized leaves. Currently, I can't seem to find the loose leaf style of this anywhere, and user Bok kindly left this link in another post to help me understand why:

https://www.theoolongdrunk.com/single-p ... -white-tea

However, I believe I did recently find my brown Bai Mu Dan in ball form, pictured.

What's confusing me is that my usual Hong Kong supplier markets this as Bai Mu Dan, but on eBay, virtually all the retailers (currently) list it as Shoumei.

I think I know what Shoumei is like, but I've had only one example --enough to know I don't care for it. It has much bigger leaves and a harder, more earthy, bitter taste than Bai Mu Dan.
Whatever is pictured, which I love, has a more mellow, rounded, raisin-y taste with a floral note, and virtually no bitterness.

So what exactly am I drinking?

I'm not an expert on white tea, but as a veteran eBay-er in other arenas where people are likely to play games with the truth (collectibles like ancient coins), a few things I would note about those eBay auctions you mentioned (you didn't link to any but they are easy to find):

- You may have noticed that many listings have duplicate photos (for the type you are looking for as well as others) - this is a common tactic (not just on eBay - copycat computer software is another) where you have one seller with multiple "tendrils" or shopfronts posing as different end-retailers. You also get misappropriation of stock photos and outright plagiarizing of images.

- You may also have noticed that there are other vendors who may not be using the same photos but who are selling the same tea (or at least the same packaging...) but that, for both these and some of those falling into the group above, different years are specified for the age of this tea (I saw some with no year, some with 2016, some with 2008, you could probably find others).

- Additionally, you probably saw that some listings have "jumbled-up" item listings; e.g. white tea and black tea in the same header, or bai mudan and shoumei in the same header. You are probably already aware of this, but eBay returns results based on the tags that are mentioned in that listing name or header, so sellers often will include tags that aren't actually relevant in order to get themselves in more search results.

What does this mean for your white tea? Well, again, not a white tea expert but I wouldn't trust eBay to help you make a determination of this sort - the info in those listings may or may not be accurate. The one specifically tea-related thing I will mention is that, at least in my experience buying from Western-facing vendors, shoumei and gongmei are much more common than bai mudan. But given the use of multiple (if not stock) photos in different listings and the same wrapper displayed in listings that have different descriptions, I'd be reluctant to draw conclusions one way or another based on ebay. Of course, just because aspects of a listing are untrustworthy doesn't everything in the listing is false, which adds another layer of uncertainty.

[John_B]

It's my understanding that Bai Mu Dan is an earlier harvested white tea made from buds and fine leaves, and Shou Mei is picked and processed later, most often from older and larger leaves. In actual outcome Bai Mu Dan tends to be lighter in color, less oxidized, but that is probably tied to me trying different quality level versions as a generality, drinking better Bai Mu Dan in many cases than I have Shou Mei. I've typically ran across Bai Mu Dan as higher quality loose tea and Shou Mei as pressed cakes, more from mass production sources, so different causes and effects mix.

I looked through that post by the Oolong Drunk and it's not necessarily wrong but also not based on a great understanding of what white tea even is, and what outcomes that results in. One of the core themes of that post, beyond that aged tea claims aren't always accurate, which should be common knowledge, is that there is a way to "fake" aging white tea. That citation:

Before I go into that, let me explain what the more traditional way of processing white process looks like:


Tea leaves are plucked/harvested, then traditionally spread thin and evenly on large bamboo mats, while being lightly turned to air-dry in the sun — a process that both withers and dries the tea, before being sent to lightly cook to completely dry the leaves.

However, unlike the more traditional process of white tea, producing browned-white tea goes through a process that looks like this:

The tea leaves are plucked and harvested, before being spread thick on large bamboo mats. The tea also air-dries in the sun, but since teas are packed on the mats more densely, they create hot-humidity. The hotter the pile of leaves become, the quicker the moisture evaporates from the leaves — making the pile more humid in a continual cycle. In this continual cycle, the leaves turn brown.


It's framed as if this is some sort of conspiracy, but really they're just not laying out the leaves thin enough to get them to dry quickly, so they are oxidizing more before they become dry. The dry tea will keep on oxidizing as it ages, just very slowly, so a "greener / traditional" processed tea would seem similar to a version allowed to oxidize more initially, after another year or two of aging. Is that really used as "fake aging"? I suppose it's possible. But it's just degree of oxidation in a white tea.

Degree of oxidation applies to green tea, black tea, and oolong too; variations in processing changes the level. People tend to think that green tea is absolutely not oxidized and black tea is fully oxidized but that's an oversimplification, and not entirely correct. It probably works to say that white tea should be dried relatively quickly, to preserve initial compounds, but that applies without a conspiracy theory, and probably also depends on personal preference.

This Farmerleaf (producer) video on processing white tea makes it all a bit clearer:

[Nis]

In terms of white tea grades, it goes something like this: Silver needle > Bai Mu Dan > Gong Mei > Shou Mei.

Bai Mu Dan is bud plus a few leaves. Don't remember off the top of my head if the farmer is "allowed" to do a silver needle pick first, or if bai mu dan has to be the first pick.
Gong Mei is a later pick, coming after silver needle and bai mu dan, that may or may not have buds in it. Shou Mei is, as I understand it, even later still and typically should have no buds. However, I have seen various definitions of gong mei and shou mei - some of them contradicting each other - so make of that what you will.

The tea leaves are plucked and harvested, before being spread thick on large bamboo mats. The tea also air-dries in the sun, but since teas are packed on the mats more densely, they create hot-humidity. The hotter the pile of leaves become, the quicker the moisture evaporates from the leaves — making the pile more humid in a continual cycle. In this continual cycle, the leaves turn brown.

It's framed as if this is some sort of conspiracy, but really they're just not laying out the leaves thin enough to get them to dry quickly, so they are oxidizing more before they become dry. The dry tea will keep on oxidizing as it ages, just very slowly, so a "greener / traditional" processed tea would seem similar to a version allowed to oxidize more initially, after another year or two of aging. Is that really used as "fake aging"? I suppose it's possible. But it's just degree of oxidation in a white tea.

I think Oolong Drunk is right here. The extra heat and humidity is going to have an effect that plain oxidation on its own never could - even over the span of a few years. The initial internal cell breakdown, and resulting chemical reaction in the leaf, is simply going to be a lot more pronounced. Of course, with modern hot-air drying methods (as opposed to sun drying), humidity is likely a much smaller factor, so the difference should be less obvious.

[Nis]

Paul has a few words on white tea grades in the September tea club.