White Pu-erh Tea

Whether it’s due to the rising demand for pu-erh tea, the current fashion of drinking it, or simply trying to catch the right keywords for search engines—who knows? Some pu-erh tea sellers refer to White Pu-erh as simply white tea that has been pressed into 200–357g cakes or small “long zhu” (Dragon Balls).

. In some tea stores can be also seen a loose white Da Bai Hao
, Yue Guang Bai or even tea tree flowers Ya Bao sold as “White Pu-erh“.

Pu-erh tea is distinctive because of its unique processing method, which includes the crucial “kill green” step (see full processing details in our blog). While white tea can also age similarly to pu-erh—making pressing it reasonable since properly stored aged white tea is quite enjoyable—it does not undergo the kill green process. Therefore, there is no basis to call it pu-erh.
The same tea leaves can be used to produce black tea or green tea, but different processing methods define each final product. Essentially, tea is categorized by how the fresh tea leaves are processed (withering, kill green, rolling, fermenting, etc.), not by how the dry tea leaves are stored (loose, pressed into cakes, bricks, tuo cha, etc.).
Calling pressed white tea “pu-erh” would be like putting grape juice into a long green bottle with a cork and calling it red wine.

For example, the black tea Shai Hong is sometimes pressed into cakes due to its partially similar ripening characteristics with pu-erh, yet it is never called “black” or “red pu-erh.” So, if you pressed oolong tea into a cake, would you really call it “oolong pu-erh”?
Given the way the tea business is evolving in China, I wouldn’t be surprised to see such naming trends appear on the market soon.
There is only one type of tea that could theoretically be called White Pu-erh. It comes from leaves harvested from old white tea trees – as locals call them (which are distinct from regular tea trees) and is processed like pu-erh—meaning it includes the kill green step. Its front flavor resembles regular white tea sweetness but also carries the characteristic “hui gan” sweet aftertaste and the “shen jing” sweetness on the sides of your tongue.

This type of tea is extremely rare and rarely enters the Chinese tea market, let alone foreign pu-erh tea stores. It is usually shared only among tea farmers and their close friends. We are fortunate to have had the opportunity to try some.
Another way to label this tea more accurately would be to switch the word order. Since most Yunnan white tea comes from the Pu’er area, producers or vendors can call it Pu’er White Tea—just as we see with names like Menghai Shu Pu’er Tea or Fengqing Black Tea.

Please note:
This article was written purely for informational purposes, aiming to bring a bit of clarity to the often chaotic and commercialized world of the tea business.
Hope it helps.