What is white tea and the classification

What exactly is white tea? White tea is the only tea among the six major tea categories in China that has not been processed by fire.

The tea leaves is naturally withered and then made into a very mild tea. Lots of people have heard of silver needle, white peony, and shoumei, but how can we distinguish them? If you pick the tea leaves very early in the spring, when it only has one bud and not grows into any leave, then it is called silver needle. It’s very tender, rare and expensive. If you pick one bud and one leaf or one bud with two leaves, we call it white peony. When picking two or three leaves with stems, we call it Shoumei. Actually, white tea is all about the tea making process, and this process can be used to make any kinds of tea leaves anywhere. So any types of tea can be called white tea as long as it was made according to the process.