An Ji Bai Cha (安吉白茶) - a delicate green tea

Anji baicha
-I love looking at the leaves after brewing, totally amazing that the bud and 2 leaves can look like it was just plucked!

After completing the Tea Sommelier Certificate Courses at George Brown College several years ago, my sampling of a multitude of teas every week had ceased and I returned to drinking only my favourite teas, occasionally having a chai or a sencha.  So it was nice to sample a range of teas again and loved doing it at Tao's Tea Leaf Spring Tasting Event.  Anji baicha is one tea I picked up at the event.


Anji baicha - dry leaves, rolled thin and long


An Ji Bai Cha (安吉白茶) is a light green tea whose flavour is mild and delicate.  The characters 安吉 "An Ji"  is in reference to the city/town in China the tea leaf originates from and the characters 白茶 "Bai Cha" which translates to "white tea" refer to the colour of the leaf before harvest.  The buds are whitish-green in colour and are only this colour before the first harvest.  The term 'Bai cha' is commonly used for white teas such as Silver Needle or Bai Mu Dan (White Peony), but this is not a white tea.

This is actually a new green tea, it was discovered in the 1980s but some believe this is a lost tea that was referenced in a 900 year old ancient book.  According to the Seven Cups Tea Shop, this tea must be picked before the temperature rises above 25 degrees Celcius, otherwise the leaves start to turn brighter green, losing their white-green colour.  This apparently changes the characteristics of the tea.

I brewed this quite mild at first.

2g in 6oz of water for 1.5 mins.
Water temp 175F

But I found it was better with 3g in 6 oz of water.  Taste is grassy with notes of some sort of vegetable like asparagus...can‘t really say.

 

I paired it with a red bean taiyaki treat from Kevin's Taiyaki that we picked up from Galleria supermarket.  The taiyaki complemented the tea nicely.  Since the tea was a little more delicate, I'm glad the red bean wasn't too sweet.  My only comment about the taiyaki was that there was actually too much filling and not enough cake!  There were certain sections of the cake that only had a very, very thin layer surrounding the red bean filling which is actually quite impressive that it didn't leak out.  

 

This cross-section shows a good balance between cake and red bean filling but aside from the centre, red bean was much more dominate in other parts of the cake.

Overall a nice green tea.