Talk:White tea

message: This little tidbit here:
White tea usually contains buds and young tea leaves, which have been found to contain lower levels of caffeine than older leaves, suggesting that the caffeine content of some white teas may be slightly lower than that of green teas.
Some white teas may have slightly lower caffeine levels than green teas? Some white teas may also have slightly lower caffeine levels than other white teas, I suppose? This unnecessary sentence contributes nothing to the article -- we need to do some research, find out the definitive answer on whether or not white tea has less caffeine than green tea, and put it here. This current sentence helps nobody.
--69.139.5.241 (talk) 19:22, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  White Tea, Caffeine, and Weasel Words 

message: I am very skeptical about including White pu-erh tea in this section as being young tea buds does not make it a white tea.
White tea is about processing. White pu-erh probably is processed like a pu-erh tea, not white tea.
Oriental beauty is made from one bud and two leaves. So is a keemun. There are many green teas that are just single buds, or one-bud-one-leaf, none of them is considered a white tea.
Juliantai 13:57, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  White puerh 

message: I have removed the following statement:
White tea is tea made from new growth buds and young leaves of the plant Camellia sinensis.
By Roderick H. Dashwood, "Micronutrient Information Center - Tea". Linus Pauling Institute, Oregon State University http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/phytochemicals/tea/''
While the above statement is generally true, it does not chacterised white tea. Green tea is made from young buds. Like white tea, it can be one bud, one-bud-one-leaf or one-bud-two-leaf.
More rarely, oolong tea (Oriental beauty), red tea (Keemun) is made from one-bud-and-two-leaf too.
White tea is characterised by its processing, not leaf style.
I have also removed the following statement as they appear in the same place and seems to imply buds and leaves characterise whiet tea:
As white teas contain buds and leaves, whereas other teas are mainly leaves, the dried tea does not look green and has a pale appearance.
Health and Tea FAQs". The University of Arizona http://www.publichealth.arizona.edu/Divisions/HPS/TeaStudies/TeaStudyFAQs.aspx
Roderick H. Dashwood, "Spring/Summer 2005 Research Report - Tea Time". Linus Pauling Institute, Oregon State University
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/ss05/teatime.html''
White tea appears pale green or silvery grey for two reasons. First, because it has younger leaves, as the above pointed out. Second, because the white tea plants (Baihao, Dabao etc) have very fat buds with white downy hairs.
The modern invention of white tea comes with the breakthough in 1857 of the successful cultivation of modern white tea plants, which have these unusual characteristics to make white tea processing feasible in large commercial scale.
Certain green tea can have whitish leaves as well (such as the Anji Baicha), but that doesn't make them white tea.
Similarly, white tea pearl appears greyish white, but is actually processed like a green tea.
Juliantai 13:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  White tea consists of buds 

message: I find it rather strange that Babelcarp somehow ended up under external links; its a clear 'dictionary' of tea and it can be used as a reference for most tea questions, its certainly a source.  69.123.33.133 I cant see why you moved it. --Iateasquirrel 00:10, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hence added to External Links, does this seem about right? --Iateasquirrel 22:16, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No.  Read WP:EL for the policies about what is acceptable as an external link.  In general, that site, which does not even self-identify or self-pronounce any author names or editorial standards, is not suitable as either a WP:Reliable Source or an external link.  I don't think it even meets the weaker standards under WP:ELMAYBE.  Cazort (talk) 19:25, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links... 

message: WHen the article said that a "recent study" showed the health effects of white tea, it didn't clarify which study it was(ie.what lab, which doctor...)
The health section should either be sourced correctly or deleted. It reads like an advert for White Tea and I have never seen such strong claims in any scientific literature. 130.123.104.22 (talk) 22:19, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Health benefits

message: The history section seems to have remarkably little information in it.  The only historical information given is a speculation that tea may have originally been prepared like white tea.  Unless someone finds something good to add to it, or is very attached to the section for some reason, I will delete it soon.--Lesnail 18:48, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: History

message: This article is completely unreferenced. I notice that one uncited health claim was removed recently; why wasn't the whole article removed (especially the history section, which I have tried to wikify a little) :) Abtract 22:58, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have tried to only remove claims which were dubious and which had been tagged needing citation for a while. MatthewEHarbowy 23:06, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: references/citation

message: Some pages, such as , claim white tea is steamed, and sometimes fermented (oxidized).
Other pages, such as , don't claim that it is steamed, but instead claim that it is withered and sun-dried.
It is clear that the distinctive character of white tea is the silver needles, however these hairs are found on other teas such as golden needle Yunnan. It is not clear that one can conclude that white tea is chemically different from green tea based upon the analysis of a single white tea and a single green tea from one vendor in a single test, as in the citation of Santana-Rios et al (Mutat Res 495 61-74 2001). Catechin levels in tea plants vary widely and a subject to variation in clone, light, weather, age, fertilizer, etc. It sounds and smells like marketing speak. One cannot tell if a given tea is "white tea" because no definitive test is asserted. 
It is my opinion that white tea should be merged with green tea, unless it can be shown that there is a distinctive test, such as a golden appearance to the leaf (versus green, such as found on pai mu tan) is the distinctive charaterization, and can show that a single processing variation (be it shading, which would possible lower chlorophyll production and impart yellow; or steaming, which would freeze the enzymes; or withering and sun-drying, which would potentially also convert green to yellow) is the distinctive difference between silver needle white teas and other teas which have silver or gold needles.
Also, if the argument be made that say, only Fujian tea can be white, then a scientific classification must be showing how the soil, growing conditions, or plant clonal variety is specific to the region, or else the distinction is a legalistic one, such as a Beaujolais or Champagne appellation. This should be stated.
MatthewEHarbowy 19:30, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  withered or steamed? 

message: The introduction to the article says that the processing method for white tea makes it retain more catechins than other varieties of tea. Then further down, we have a sentence that in the first half says white tea actually has fewer catechins than green tea, but in the second half (of the same sentence!) says that it has approximately the same quantities as green tea.  Which is it? If sources disagree, we should at least point that out... right now we say three different things, each as if they were undisputed fact. --Delirium 23:29, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried to read the abstract of the referenced article and I dont get it. Unfortunately the full article is not available for free on this website. Maybe someone with access to scientific papers could verify it. --helohe (talk) 23:12, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  inconsistent statements on catechins 

message: 1) Article should not present white tea as Chinese only. Since it's grown and consumed elsewhere, the article should present a global perspective. (Hence the addition of Chinese characters here is inappropriate. As would be adding Indian and African words, and words in every other language whose people consider white tea a part of their culture.)
2) The history section needs to collect sources regarding the origin, distribution, and historical use of white tea. The existing section (which I deleted) had only a marginally topical annecdote about what peasants in China used to serve when tea wasn't available. (To amplify, this usage is a different word sense: "This usage is related to plain boiled water...". It isn't that Wiki articles can't contain more than one word sense, it's that this marginal historical meaning was the only sense described, while the main article topic wasn't described whatever.)
3) Central issues are buried in the article under a somewhat chaotic mish-mash of facts: "Caffeine content of green and white teas are similar, though both depend on factors such as the variety of tea, the cut and length of the leaf, and the method of steeping." These are important concepts, and the rest of the article should take them into consideration. I.e., what exactly does it mean to say that caffeine or catechin or theobromine content is such-and-such? By weight? By brewed volume? By typical amount of consumption? By amount assimilated? It's misleading to throw around study results without explaining their implications.
4) The section on brewing, for example, is not much better than original research. People brew tea in many ways, to achieve many effects. Identifying "finer teas" as those standing up to longer infusion sounds suspeciously like a circular definition. Of course, phrases such as "highly prized" and "highest grade" should be explained, or omitted. Piano non troppo (talk) 23:18, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Article rewrite

message: The claims of being less processed seem to be untrue.  They seem to be claiming that steaming is less processed than drying, but that doesn't seem logical at all.  Steaming requires addition of a new ingredient (water) as well as heat (cooking).  Drying does not add any ingredients and while it typically implies that high temperature was used I would imagine no where near as high as if steamed. 68.188.25.170 (talk) 08:23, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  less processed?  

message: I am confused by this sentence:
White tea (Chinese: 白茶; pinyin: báichá) is a lightly oxidized[1] tea grown and harvested almost exclusively in China, primarily in the Fujian province.[2]
This sentence sounds like White tea is a unique type of plant, but from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camellia_sinensis
"White tea, green tea, oolong, pu-erh tea and black tea are all harvested from [Camellia sinensis], but are processed differently to attain different levels of oxidation
129.2.129.219 (talk) 13:59, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing sentence 

message: It seems that these two sections of the article say the same things. Should be edited for redundancy.
MR.264 (talk) 19:16, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree. This is specifically what i came to highlight. The health benefits of the tea are inextricably linked to the contents. Health benefits should then be a subsection under contents. As a preliminary suggestion, maybe have a general outline of what tea includes, comparing and contrasting to other teas. Then, in the next sub-section, the health benefits of particular contents can be explored in more detail specific to white tea.
unfortunately i don't have the time to do this and this page doesn't look too active. 80.176.89.230 (talk) 12:31, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contents/Health overlap 

message: I think RateTea's page on White Tea would make a good addition to this page as an external link.  I have a clear conflict of interest in adding this link, as I am the founder and editor of that site, and I also derive financial benefit from the advertising on it, so I am posting here to ask for discussion from other editors about whether they find this would be a good addition to the page.  People may also want to discuss whether or not it would be more appropriate as a source.
Editors may wish to check Wikipedia's guidelines on external links.  I think the page contains information that I think is useful for a thorough understanding of white tea but not suitable for direct inclusion in this page, including (1) collecting in a single place a listings of specific companies selling white tea, the teas available from these companies, and the regions in which these teas are produced (2) original research about the inconsistency in the definitions of white tea--material which, to my knowledge, is not available anywhere else except in self-published sources like blogs.
Thanks in advance for your input! Cazort (talk) 19:36, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested External Link / Conflict of Interest 

message: The footnote 13 uses Pace University's opinion/news, rather than a scientific report.Bo Basil (talk) 18:42, 17 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Footnote to Pace University 

message: =wotchines toldme..81.11.231.144 (talk) 09:27, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  mould>white