White tea · Fujian
Gong Mei
贡眉
The "tribute eyebrow" — a white tea between White Peony and Shou Mei, with more buds than the latter and a soft honeyed-floral sweetness. Accessible, well-mannered and a fine candidate for ageing.
- Region
- Fujian — traditionally from the Cai Cha bush
- Harvest
- Spring and autumn — bud-and-leaf plucking
- Oxidation
- Lightly oxidised (withered and dried)
- Cultivar
- Cai Cha (small-leaf) and Da Bai bushes
In the cup
Honeyed and floral with a soft sweetness — fuller than White Peony, more refined than a leafy Shou Mei.
What it gives
A gentle, mellow white — soft and low in astringency, soothing fresh and warming with age.
Gong Mei — tribute eyebrow — sits in the middle of the Fujian white-tea family. It carries more bud and tip than the leaf-heavy Shou Mei, which gives it a finer, sweeter cup, but it is more abundant and approachable than the prized White Peony. Traditionally it was made from the small-leaf Cai Cha bush, and the name nods to tea once sent as tribute.
Like all whites, it is made the simplest way — withered and dried, nothing more — which leaves the leaf open to slow change in storage. Fresh, Gong Mei is soft, honeyed and lightly floral; given years, it sweetens and deepens like its leafier cousin.
In the cup
Brew off the boil, around 85–95 °C, with short steeps that you can extend as the leaf opens. The cup is gentle and honey-sweet with a floral edge, generous over several rounds. Well-stored cakes age gracefully and take happily to a hotter, longer brew.
How to brew
Gong Mei
Water
85–95 °C
Leaf
5 g per 100 ml
Steep
Short steeps, several rounds
Vessel
Gaiwan; aged leaf takes boiling
