Leaves from small 100-year-old tea trees, harvested in master Xiang’s favorite garden near Madeng in early March 2025. Immediately after picking, the leaves are spread in a thin layer on bamboo trays and dried for four days under a large canopy, being taken out into the gentle morning sun to drive off the “night moisture.” This removes excess bitterness from the tea. The master carefully controls this critically important drying process, determining the tea’s readiness by touch. What may seem like a simple white tea production method is, in reality, quite complex and full of crucial details: the stage of leaf development at harvest, the weather during picking and drying, the way the leaves are arranged on the trays, and continuous control of leaf moisture over time, achieved by regularly moving the trays to locations with optimal environmental conditions.