SRI LANKA
White teas are for many tea lovers the best of the best. They set the very highest standards of growing, harvesting, and delicacy of handling. They are the least processed tea with every leaf and bud selected and plucked in a short season, often just a week or so. The subtlety and complexity of their light flavors and aromas
Several of the world’s most highly regarded white teas are now grown in Sri Lanka. This is part of the expansion of great white teas from being almost entirely grown in China, with Silver Needle, Shou Mei, and Bai Mudan (White Peony) the three dominant varieties. Now India offers some outstanding Moonlight whites. Kenya produces a fine Silverlake.
And Sri Lanka has added Virgin White tea to the nation’s distinctive whites of which the most renowned is Adam’s Peak. It is a deliberate throwback to the Imperial Tribute Teas of early China. Tribute teas were reserved for the Emperor. The very best, such as Longjing Dragonwell, were untouched by human hand. Young virgins, wearing gold gloves and using gold scissors, delicately plucked the stem at dawn and placed it into a gold basket. The tea making principle underlying the royal show biz ritual was to minimize any contamination to the delicate leaf – sweat, body odor, germs, metal (hence the gold scissors).
Sri Lanka’s Handunugoda estate applies the “untouched by human hand” standard, less the job qualification, in growing its Herman Virgin White. The tea pluckers gather just 160 grams of leaf per day, versus the general 30-kilo output. Only 10 kilos are made per year and the tea is stocked only by the most prestigious French tea house. The price is US$1,500 a kilo, about $42 an ounce and $3.50 a cup.
Is it worth it? It is to someone. More interestingly, it raises the question of just how far the limits of selectivity and delicacy of processing can go in making a fine tea great. There are plenty of excellent Silver Needles on the market at around $8 an ounce but, say, an Adam’s Peak seems to fully merit its typical (when available) $40 and Castleton’s comparably priced Darjeeling Moonlight White is less costly per cup than coffee from that name that has a place on every corner.