White Night Tea is a white tea sold by Mandala Tea, an Oolong Owl favorite US based tea seller.
Tea peeps – this tea, White Night Tea, is processed in a certain way, encouraging it to age. With that said, in a few years, this white will become a black tea! SUPER HOOTY COOL! Mandala Tea has so many cool teas! Let’s jump right into tasting White Night tea with a new Tea Owl, Formal Night Tea Owl!
Dry Leaf
White Night tea has a pretty interesting dry leaf – it’s big, open leaf with some fuzzy hairs. Some of the leaves are silver, some black. The mix of white and black leaf appearance screams this tea is a black tie affair. Scent of the leaves is quite subtle, a bit of hay scent.
Steeping Instructions
Mandala Tea suggests using 175F to 185F filtered water. After a 20 second rinse, you steep White Night tea for 1 minute, adding 30 seconds to each additional steeping, maxing at 3 minutes.
The dry leaf is really spacious and light, so the steeping instructions suggest 1 heaping tablespoon, or 3 to 4 grams, per 8oz of water. I went with 3.5 grams and it was a pretty stacked heaping tablespoon of tea. With that said, I highly recommend measuring this tea or be generous. I decided to use my glass Mandala Tea Thermos as a tea pot, along with a serving pitcher.
Rinsing this white tea felt unusual. I don’t often rinse whites or greens, but hey, I trust Mandala Tea.
Rinsing White Night tea appeared to unlock the leaves’ mega scent – the kitchen smelled like green grapes with a hint of char. Whoa!
Tasting of Mandala Tea’s White Night Tea
First Infusion: The colour of White Night tea is a unsaturated pale yellow, very different than the usual white tea.
White Night tea sips in full of flavor and body. Lots of creamy texture! White Night tea has notes of sparkling green grape, light earthy body, slight musty, but with plenty juicy sweetness. The tea is super smooth and easy to drink. There is a great sticky creamyness at end of sip, that lingers a long time in its aftertaste, as if my mouth is full of puffy clouds!
With the first steeping, I found White Night tea has an interesting parallel between white and raw pu’er. It’s not crisp and refreshing like a white, but has the sweetness and juicyness of a white.
Second and Third Infusion: White Night tea deepens in colour, increasing the saturation of yellow into the steeping.
The tea is still full of flavor, actually, more stronger in flavor. Less sweet, yet more smooth and creamy. There is a mysterious quality to this tea, which I love when teas do this, that makes you sip it more and more to unravel the tea’s mystery. It’s like White Night tea has a bit of maltyness, similar to late steepings of a gold tipped yunnan black, yet sweet like a white, and sticky aftertaste like a pu’er.
Fourth and Fifth Infusion: White Night tea lightens with each further steeping, becoming light and wispy, yet still super creamy mouth feel after each sip.
The leaves also get pretty big and open! A very big leaf’d tea!
After 5 steepings, I’m tea drunk hyper, arm flailing, and fuzzy feeling. Tea drunk off a white tea?! WHOA!
Comments
Mandala Tea‘s White Night tea is a uniquely complex white that mysteriously dances between a white, black and pu’er tea. This is a white tea that I’ve never had before and I really dig the complexity. I think new tea drinkers will love how full flavored and easy to drink White Night tea is, whereas long time tea drinkers will love how different this tea is. Also, tea drinkers who usually enjoy a more full flavor teas, like black and pu’ers, should give White Night tea a try – you’ll dig it!
I’m going to slot White Night tea as an Ool0ng Owl Favorite! I’m curious… I wonder what White Night tea will be like in a few years when it turns into a black tea? Could I actually keep it around that long in my stash?
Bonus: Formal Night Tea Owl, tea hyper, are going to hit the town!
