I don’t think any of the tea encyclopedias even knew or included the Fuding Small White Varietal. This is the original，ancient varietal of the white tea. Some years ago producers decided that cultivating them into the Large White Varietal (Da Bai Ye Zhong）have better yield. The small varietal had few too few sprouts, and so, most were uprooted in favor of the Large White. Mr. Zhou has kept up his family’s tradition: aside from no pesticide use ( not necessary due to elevation and hardiness), the plants are not fertilized. Instead, they are pruned to the root every single mid April, after the rain, and allowing the sprouts to grow very sparse. This allows the rainfall to trickle down to the roots, oxygenating and creating its own nutritional system. Besides, applying fertilizers will force the leaves to grow fast, dense, large, and flavorless. No thanks. Mr. Zhou opts for the thankless, profit less, and completely ancient methods, all so the tea taste so unique, so sublime, that one would be moved to tears and appreciate the fact that one is alive, and to be able to taste this tea. I weep and find resonance. Especially the thankless and profit less part. Why, that’s what we chose to do as well, garnering us wonderful Yelp comments like ‘overpriced’ when they have no idea the level these teas go and what they really should be priced at. Mr. Zhou and I will both lose money just to keep this tradition of Bailin Gongfu alive.
Ah, the bittersweet decade plus years of trying to bring the top teas into the US ….I wonder how much longer I will keep going. If not for such love of tea, seeing the uneducated levels of even other tea purveyors and the junk they put into the market (Starbucks ‘biluochun’), makes one feel very, very, alone in the universe.
