One of my colleagues visits China regularly and was given this tea as a gift. However they didn’t see themselves making the most of it so offered it to me.
I have no idea what to do with it though. It’s like a circular brick of compressed tea leaves. Do I just take off a chunk and leave it in hot water? Does the temperature matter, and do I need any particular tools?
I’ve only ever used tea bags so I’m a bit lost
Edit: also the expiry says November 2023… but it’s just tea right?
Beat me to it. But I’d like to add that white tea is usually brewed at 90C, which is about 194F.
There are two common styles of brewing tea, western and eastern. Western style uses less tea leaves for an amount of water and the brewing time is longer. Eastern style, commonly known as gongfu style (can also be written kungfu), is more leaves per amount of water and shorter brews. Gongfu style also lets you brew the same leaves several times, while western style spends the leaves in one brewing.
If you want to gongfu brew it, I recommend about 5g of leaves for 100g of water. White tea doesn’t go bitter that easily, so you can just brew it until it’s good for your taste buds. You can start from 10-30s for the first brew and then add 5 second for every successive brews. Adjust as you see fit.
To break the leaves from the cake, use some long thin metal object. Screwdriver if that’s all you have. Avoid cutting it, unless that’s the only way to break it.
Google Translate gave this result:
White tea is supposed to help control diabetes. Source: a tea shop in Darjeeling, India.
It’s also very delicate and nice and a very easy way to get enough liquids in!