From teas,but more than teas

Only the bud and the two youngest leaves, snapped by hand at dawn. A skilled picker gathers about 4 kg in a day, enough for less than 1 kg of finished tea.

The leaf rests on bamboo trays and slowly gives up its water. White tea is little more than this: up to three days of patient withering, then drying.

A blazing wok stops the leaf from changing. The leaf is turned by bare hand so it never scorches: too cool and it turns sour, too hot and it burns.

Rolling breaks the cell walls and shapes the leaf, so its oils wait for your water. Each tea has its own shape: flat, curled, twisted, or rolled into pearls.

Pu-erh is dried in sunlight rather than over fire. The leaf stays alive, so it can keep changing inside the cake for decades.

Every stem, yellowed leaf, and broken piece is picked out by hand on long wooden tables before the tea goes any further.

The leaf is softened with steam and pressed under stone into cakes, wrapped in cotton paper, and bundled in bamboo husk, seven to a stack.

Pu-erh and white tea grow darker, smoother, and sweeter with every year in clean, airy storage.