Moonlight Summer White

Most of the summer harvest becomes black tea; a very small part is set aside for this. Select clonal leaf, plucked at the height of the second flush, is withered gently and dried with almost no further handling — a white tea made in the season usually reserved for muscatel.

The summer sun gives it what spring whites do not have: ripe fruit — white peach, muskmelon — over a pale straw liquor. It is made in small quantities, which is why the caddy is small. Twenty-five grams, steeped patiently, goes further than it looks.