Jason in Oakland > writes:

> I got some Shou Mei white tea from Upton today...and was surprised a bit by
> what it looked like and smelled like. First, I had read that white tea is
> the bud and first leaf, and often covered with a silvery down (hence the
> name).

Not necessarily. "White tea" refers not to a grade of leaf but to a
processing method.

> There supposedly isn't any fermentation/oxidation, so the leaves
> should have a greenish hue, not a brownish one.

Actually, it's common for white tea to be slightly more oxidized than
green tea, since white tea is dried more slowly.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html