15 teas · 1 free in the app

White Tea

White tea is simply withered and dried — the least handled of the six types, made from buds and young leaves still covered in silver down. The 15 white teas here brew at a median 88 °C (190 °F) for 4 minutes, and every one of them carries a Gong Fu ladder averaging eight infusions.

White Tea at a glance

White Tea at a glance
	Leaf	Water	Temperature	Time	Re-steeps
Western	3.5 g	250 ml	88°C / 190°F	4 min	4
Gong Fu	5 g	100 ml	88°C / 190°F	20 s +	8

Caffeine: 20 mg per cup15 with a Gong Fu ladder 1 free in the app

Median values across all 15 teas on this page. Each tea's own page carries its exact numbers.

Start this timer → teafinity.app

The least handled tea there is

White tea skips both the fixing of green tea and the rolling of black. Buds and young leaves are picked, withered — often in open air, sometimes for days — and dried. Nothing is bruised, so oxidation happens only slightly and slowly at the edges, and the silver down that gives Silver Needle its name survives intact on the finished bud.

That restraint is the whole flavour. Good white tea tastes of hay, melon, cucumber skin and honey, with a sweetness that arrives late and stays. Grades run from Bai Hao Yin Zhen — buds only — through Bai Mudan with its bud-and-two-leaves, to Shou Mei, the later, leafier picking that brews darker and takes far more heat.

How to brew white tea

White tea has a reputation for needing cool water that is only half true. The median across these 15 teas is 88 °C (190 °F) for 4 minutes at 3.5 g per 250 ml — hotter than green tea, because there is more intact bud material to open and very little to scorch. Pure bud teas do prefer the lower end, around 80 °C; leafy Shou Mei will happily take water straight off the boil.

The real reward is patience. Every one of these teas carries a Gong Fu ladder — 5 g per 100 ml, twenty-second first infusion, a median of eight steeps — and white tea changes more between infusion three and infusion eight than almost any other type, moving from delicate florals into stone fruit and honey. Aged white cakes go further still and are often simmered rather than steeped.

Caffeine and when to drink it

At a median 20 mg per cup this is the gentlest caffeinated type in the library — a common surprise, since bud-heavy teas are chemically caffeine-rich, but the low ratio and modest temperature extract comparatively little of it. That makes white tea a workable afternoon and early-evening cup for people who cannot drink black tea past lunchtime.

One of these teas is free in the app; the rest are in the full library. Every entry below links to its own page with the complete Western and Gong Fu schedules, tasting notes and origin.