Jason in Oakland writes:

I got some Shou Mei white tea from Upton today...and was surprised a bit by
what it looked like and smelled like. First, I had read that white tea is
the bud and first leaf, and often covered with a silvery down (hence the
name).

Not necessarily. "White tea" refers not to a grade of leaf but to a
processing method.

There supposedly isn't any fermentation/oxidation, so the leaves
should have a greenish hue, not a brownish one.

Actually, it's common for white tea to be slightly more oxidized than
green tea, since white tea is dried more slowly.

/Lew
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Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html