The green tea that turns white — a spring morning in Anji
In late March 2026, the harvest began on the misty slopes of Anji county in northern Zhejiang. There, at 600 metres, a small family garden tends the elusive Bái Yè No. 1 cultivar. When the soil temperature lingers below 20°C, the tea bushes produce shoots almost bereft of chlorophyll — pale, translucent, and rich in theanine. For only about ten days each spring, these ‘white’ buds are plucked, one leaf and a bud, before the trees green up and the magic fades. At dawn the pickers moved through the rows, filling baskets with silvery tips. The garden’s owner, a third-generation tea maker, then processed the leaves with the swift, gentle kill-green, a low-and-slow wok-firing that preserves the fragile amino acids. The resulting dry leaf still holds that winter-pale colour, a true badge of pre-Qingming quality. This lot was selected from that day’s firing for its exceptional sweetness and deep, satisfying umami, rendered with a lightness only Anji’s terroir can achieve. It is a quiet highlight of the spring season.