White tea · Fujian
Mu Dan Wang
牡丹王
"Peony king" — the top grade of White Peony, taken from the first and plumpest early-spring plucking. Large silvery buds with a floral-honey aroma and a silky, milky sweetness.
- Region
- Fuding, Fujian — 300–1000 m
- Harvest
- Earliest spring — the first, plumpest bud-and-leaf
- Oxidation
- Lightly oxidised (withered and dried)
- Cultivar
- Fuding Da Bai (big white) bush
In the cup
Floral and honeyed with a silky, almost milky sweetness — fuller and finer than ordinary White Peony.
What it gives
A soft, soothing white — very low in astringency, gentle and calming, with the antioxidant freshness of an early white.
Mu Dan Wang — peony king — is the finest expression of Bai Mu Dan, China’s White Peony. Where standard White Peony is a bud-and-leaf white made through the season, Mu Dan Wang is taken from the first, plumpest plucking of early spring, when the buds are largest and most silvered. The result is the same gentle white style, raised to its peak.
It comes from Fuding in northern Fujian, home of the Da Bai “big white” bush, and is made the white way — simply withered and dried. The leaf is striking: long silvery buds and tender leaf, downy and pale, with a clear floral-honey fragrance even before brewing.
In the cup
Brew gently, around 80–90 °C, with short steeps you can lengthen as it opens. The liquor is pale gold and silky, floral and honeyed with an almost milky sweetness and barely a trace of astringency. It is a soft, refined white — lovely fresh, and a strong candidate for the cellar.
How to brew
Mu Dan Wang
Water
80–90 °C
Leaf
5 g per 100 ml
Steep
Short steeps, several rounds
Vessel
Gaiwan or glass
