White tea

While both loose leaf white tea and compressed white tea cakes are made from the same ingredients, there are a few important differences:

Color: loose white teas are often silver green while compressed cakes from the same material have a slightly brownish appearance. This is related to a difference in processing that’s discussed next.

Processing: Loose white tea consists of dry leaves as a result of natural withering. Cakes have an additional step of steaming to make the leaves soft, followed compression of the leaves to turn them into cakes.

Storage & aging: Given the additional processing steps, cakes are more suitable for long term storage and aging so that they acquire a rich flavor, while loose leaf teas are great for fresh consumption. Compression also makes sure that the leaves are less fragile and less easy to break.

Taste & aroma: Given that the leaves are fresh and made from the same raw material, the flavor and aroma difference when comparing a cake with loose leaves is minimal. However, over time cakes will acquire a more mellow and sweet flavor with a thick texture, while loose white tea is more fresh and flowery. In addition, with loose leaves the flavor comes out in the earlier steeps, while the taste from cakes are drawn out in later steeps. Thus, white tea cakes tend to last for more steeps.

We can highly recommend our loose leaf white teas and cakes for optimal flavor, aroma and health benefits, instead of tea bags containing low quality dust.