White tea · Fujian
Baicha Long Zhu
白茶龙珠
White dragon pearls — Fuding white tea hand-rolled into small silvery spheres. The pearl form protects the leaf, ages well, and unfurls in the cup into a soft, honeyed white.
- Region
- Fuding, Fujian — 600–900 m
- Harvest
- Spring bud-and-leaf, hand-rolled into pearls
- Oxidation
- Lightly oxidised (withered and dried)
- Cultivar
- Fuding Da Bai (big white) bush
In the cup
Soft and honeyed with a floral, hay-sweet character — gentle and rounded, opening as the pearl unrolls.
What it gives
A calming, low-astringency white — soothing fresh, mellowing with age, easy on the stomach.
Baicha Long Zhu — white dragon pearls — takes the classic white tea of Fuding and rolls it, by hand, into small silvery spheres. The pearl is a neat modern idea on a very old tea: it compresses the leaf gently, protects the down, makes the tea easy to portion, and lets it age in a tidy form much like a pressed cake.
The base is a Fuding white in the Bai Mu Dan style — bud and tender leaf, simply withered and dried, with no firing. Each pearl is one careful portion, pale and downy, that holds its shape until water coaxes it open.
In the cup
Drop a single pearl into a glass or gaiwan and brew off the boil, around 75–85 °C, with short steeps. The pearl unrolls slowly, releasing a soft, honeyed, hay-sweet white with a faint floral lift. It is gentle and forgiving, gives several rounds, and rewards a little patience as it opens.
How to brew
Baicha Long Zhu
Water
75–85 °C
Leaf
5 g per 100 ml
Steep
Short steeps, several rounds
Vessel
Glass or gaiwan, one pearl per cup
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