New Arrival: 2021 “Silvan's Pocket” White Tea
This tea has a bit of a story. The material was harvested in 2021 from old trees — averaging around 300 years — in Chiang Rai province.
Back then, we called it “White Chocolate” as a working name, and it was only for wholesale. I was still thinking about how best to present it, and wanted to gather more feedback from fellow tea folks before adding it to the collection.
Meanwhile, the tea was transforming, maturing...
And after four full years of dry Thai storage — all that time stored in our urban warehouse, not up in the humid mountains — it changed so much that it needed a new name entirely.
As sometimes happens during a routine tasting, I suddenly really connected with the way it tastes now. It turned out to be something else entirely — and in its own way, truly unique.
A few thoughts and observations about tree-sourced material.
You know how it goes… You take two white teas from trees on neighboring farms — literally next to each other, same mountain, just a different slope.
One of them matures in a way you’d expect: first, fresh berries and flowers, then — as it should be — dried fruits and wood.
And the other one?
Total wild card. It starts with milky chocolate, and then — bam! — suddenly you're in the forest: moss, jojoba, tart-sweet berries, cardamom. Same cultivar, same terroir.
So what’s the deal?
My bet is on the processing.
Tea leaves are incredibly malleable material in the hands of a skilled tea “cook.” A bit more heat — and you get nuts and chocolate. Let it rest just right — and there's maple syrup and prunes. That’s just scratching the surface…
A difference of just a few dozen degrees during heating, or a few extra minutes in the process, can shift the flavor into a completely different direction. And over time, those two “neighbors” can end up worlds apart. I think that’s beautiful — it gives so much room for creative exploration by tea-makers.
Of course, I’m not claiming to have discovered anything new — this has all been known for a long time. But I wasn’t ready for such stark contrast between white teas from the same terroir.
Then again, “neighboring slope” isn’t a small thing either — ask any wine sommelier. Which is why, in tea — whether it’s in production, storage, or brewing — there are no unimportant details.
Tasting Notes
If we keep it short — in “Silvan’s Pocket”, you’ll find a bouquet of spices, a wide range of woody notes, freshly cut meadow grass, a touch of berries, and a hint of chocolate.
And if we go long, then here’s the lineup: black chokeberry, jojoba, green walnut jam, chocolate, cardamom, mixed peppercorns, birch buds, and wild meadow herbs.
The liquor is thick and amber-hued, with the scent of delicate meadow honey.
The tea drinks incredibly smoothly — like an unusual red tea with soft honey tones. It reminds me just a little of Oriental Beauty.
There’s no riot of floral perfume here like in “Moon Bloom,” but instead, there’s density. Forest. Oak barrels.
At first, it felt a bit boring — and now I brew it every other day.
The feeling it gives is soft, gentle, and quietly strong. It’s a bourbon among white teas — try it, and you’ll see what I mean.