Before your first steep.
You're holding seven whole tangerines packed with white tea. Three minutes of reading, then water.
- 01
Drop one whole piece into your vessel. Don't break it apart — the peel is part of the recipe.
- 02
Rinse: cover with 90 °C / 194 °F water, pour off after a breath.
- 03
Steep 10–15 seconds. Pour. Taste.
- 04
Add a little time each round. Stop counting after ten.
The peel leads with blossom and soft citrus; the white tea answers with honey and a quiet, rounded sweetness. It never shouts — this is the low-caffeine box, the before-noon box.
Southern China has aged citrus peel for centuries; kept long enough, it earns its own name — chenpi — and its own price. Tea makers eventually did the obvious thing and sealed leaf inside a hollowed fruit, leaving the two to trade oils until they steep as one voice.
The small green version — xiao qing gan, “little green tangerine” — is the tradition’s portable form. One fruit, one pot, one afternoon.