Bai Hao Yin Zhen

White Tea

The Zone-Out Tea

Bai Hao Yin Zhen means 'White Hair Silver Needle'. This is really a tea made of silver needles, as it is a tea made of only the buds of the tea plant.

It takes 10,000 hand-picked buds to make a kilo of this tea, which makes Bai Hao Yin Zhen a very rare tea. Bai Hao Yin Zhen is the highest and most refined grade of the very few teas, all strictly from the Fujian province, North of the Minjiang river, that can truly be called 'White Tea'

The buds, young, plump and fresh, are covered in soft white hair, which gives the tea its amazing silvery look after processing. In China it is said to be this hair which gives the tea its healing gift: the hair clears the lung meridians, making this tea powerful in helping with chest infections, colds, and breathing problems.

In Chinese medicine the lungs are also responsible for the hydration of the skin, so they say that this tea brings life back into your skin and protects the skin from the ageing damage of the sun.

This is the least processed of all Chinese teas. After picking the tea is simply withered in shade, air-dried and quickly fired at low temperature. This is the tea with the highest amount of antioxidants, even more than green tea, as it is the least processed.

But this is just the story and the science (Chinese and Western) behind it.

As for the experience… this is a truly beautiful tea. It is like a young girl with a deep wisdom. The tea is gentle and fresh, with a subtle sweetness. As you keep drinking it, the mind starts slowing down. Talking becomes unnecessary and eventually too much of an effort. After a while people describe a beautiful gentle feeling of being spaced-out, without care and unable to think or worry.

A woman in one of my ceremonies, who suffered from jaw clenching and teeth grinding because of stress, said that without her noticing, all the tension in her jaw had completely gone. She then became so relaxed and at ease she hardly wished to move. She described having a completely empty mind for the whole ceremony. She later slept like a log.