Silver tips—that magical fragrance wafts up the moment one opens the tin. A 5-minute steep renders a delectable liquor with a very delicate and subtle lingering aftertaste that plays in the nostrils. Ah! But don't stop there! Don't toss the leaves after just one steep—they can be steeped again.
Or, what I prefer is to set a 2-cup pot; I pour the first cup at 5 minutes; the second at 20 minutes or so. The second cup does well with a teaspoon of Turbinado sugar to offset a hint of astringency and bitterness (which is not there at all in the first pour); what a delightful nectar that second cup becomes!
Note: this tea is impossible to measure with a teaspoon—the long needles leave lots of space between them—so I use a digital scale (they can be found cheaply online—and make for very accurate "dosing"). For my two-cup pot, I use 5 grams of tea—and I pour boiling water into the pot *without preheating the pot*—that is so that the water cools off a bit; then I add the tea. (It is said that white tea should be steeped at a lower temp—like 185° F).
Note 2: I thought that probably white tea would be lower in caffeine, since the flavor is so delicate—not so! Though this tea would not take milk well, and sugar only on a very long steep, it does carry a full quota of caffeine (in addition to all the antioxidants and other good things that white tea is known to provide). A little research online suggests that the fresh shoots on the tea plant have the greatest concentration of caffeine—my experience with this tea corroborates this—silver tips are the new leaves just grown on the tips of the tea plant.
