Today, we reveal the tricks used to age and falsify old White Tea.
1. Telling Stories
This tactic is surprisingly effective, which is why unscrupulous merchants keep using it.
To sell their old white Tea at a higher price, one-year-old tea can be passed off as three years old; three-year-old tea can be claimed to be seven years old; and seven-year-old tea can be said to be over ten years old.
Even I, myself, have been asked to appraise old white teas from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s in many tea shops.
If you ask the shop owners where they got these decades-old white teas:
The typical answer is that they were purchased at a high price from a good friend of a southern business tycoon, or given by a leader to a friend, or stored by a friend who used to run a tea shop or factory, or sold in bulk by a friend due to a need for cash flow, or accidentally discovered in a corner of a tea factory's warehouse.
You might feel like spitting blood on their faces.
Aside from the unpleasant taste and potential digestive discomfort, just the smell and color are alarming enough. They really treat tea drinkers as fools.
However, there's little recourse, as most of these unscrupulous sellers firmly believe that 99.99% of tea drinkers cannot tell the true age of the tea.
The sellers persist in their claims, repeating them often. Coupled with attractive prices, a large number of people are convinced. Especially when they repeat the story of “returning” so-called old white teas, without specifying where they returned from!
Northern China naturally stored 2009 Loose-Leaf Shoumei from Tea Encyclopedia
2. Piling During Production
This is a method of white tea production observed by the Tea Encyclopedia team in certain factories within tea-producing areas.
“Piling,” originally part of the traditional black tea process, such as Liubao tea, accelerates Fermentation and improves flavor, making it smoother and less bitter or grassy.
It is similar to the “yellowing” process in Yellow Tea, but there are differences. “Piling” and “wetting” (discussed later) are also distinct processes.
“Piling” or “heap fermentation” typically occurs during the “wet stage,” before the tea leaves are fully dried into finished tea.
When producing coarser Dianthus and Shoumei, using the “piling” process results in more theaflavins and theabrownins, giving the tea a yellow, red, or brown appearance, resembling aged white tea.
This reduces the time needed for “withering” and optimizes the processing sequence to maximize yield.
The resulting tea is sweet, virtually without any grassy or astringent taste, with an Orange-yellow or orange-red liquor, and a smooth mouthfeel with little variation. This type is favored by most tea lovers who enjoy aged white tea.
This method only makes the tea appear older, but its flavor betrays its true nature, differing significantly from naturally aged tea. It cannot pass off as very old, but it can deceive consumers into thinking it's three to four years older, which is still highly profitable.
Historical records of white tea factories mention a “piling” process aimed at improving quality and taste, but it was not intended to be misused by unscrupulous sellers to age and pass off younger teas as older ones.
Aged white tea cake naturally stored by Tea Encyclopedia
3. Artificial Wetting and Wet-Piling
This is the most commonly used method by unscrupulous sellers to age and falsify old white tea.
“Wetting,” also a step in the production of dark teas like ripe Pu'er, involves spraying water onto the dried tea to initiate fermentation.
In the production of ripe Pu'er, wetting is a slow process lasting four to six weeks, requiring frequent turning to ensure proper fermentation.
For white tea, adding water to the wetting process, unlike ripe Pu'er, lacks technical maturity. As a result, the market is filled with a variety of aged and falsified white teas made through wetting.
The quantity of tea, amount of water added, duration and degree of aging are all left to the imagination of unscrupulous sellers. No one dares to openly discuss these details, so they experiment in secret. Consequently, each batch of aged white tea tastes different.
Wetting accelerates the conversion of the tea, increasing theaflavins and theabrownins, changing the appearance and liquor color, and creating a smooth flavor akin to aged white tea.
With light rolling, tea juice seeps out, and after drying, the leaves become uniformly dark brown or black, resembling aged white tea.
However, fake is fake. The liquor of wetted and aged white tea is redder than that of naturally aged white tea, often becoming particularly red in the first two or three infusions. High-quality white teas up to ten years old do not immediately produce a red liquor. Additionally, the flavor remains consistent throughout, lacking depth and complexity, similar to dark tea. Another characteristic is a thin, less viscous texture, leaving a dry and itchy sensation in the throat, prompting a desire to drink more water. The infused leaves are almost entirely red, resembling those of black tea. Poorly faked teas may show signs of carbonization and hardening of the stems. See the following images:
4. Excessive Oxidation
This method is commonly used to age and falsify loose old white tea, passing it off as much older.
Teas with short aging periods, such as one or two-year-old loose Dianthus or Shoumei, are exposed to open air, deliberately ventilated and allowed to absorb moisture, causing oxidation, enzymatic reactions, and microbial activity, accelerating the aging process to resemble older teas.
The flavor of this tea is particularly “empty” due to excessive oxidation and exposure to air, depleting its aroma.
It becomes nothing more than dried tree leaves.
Aged Shoumei white tea naturally stored by Tea Encyclopedia
5. Accidental Moisture and Intentional High-Temperature, High-Humidity Storage Followed by Drying or Sun-Drying
Due to the relatively humid climate in the south, it is unfavorable for storing white tea, especially in the mountainous regions of Fuding. I have seen too many cases where poorly stored white tea looks like it has been naturally sealed and stored for three to five years after just one year.
This type of falsification can occur either accidentally when a batch of tea gets damp and is then dried to pass off as aged white tea, or intentionally by exposing the tea to a high-temperature, high-humidity environment to speed up the conversion and decomposition, followed by