Sunglade (陽行 Yáng háng "Sun Line") is a square-shaped brick of Shou Mei white tea from 2024. Shou Mei (壽眉 shòu méi "longevity eyebrow") refers to the third, leafiest grade of white tea from Fuding, Fujian. Every year we try to get a 100 gram cake of Shou Mei from Fuding-based tea master Li Yanmei. Sometimes these are small bings, like Sugar Plum, or rectangles like Torchlight. This is the first time we've had a square-shaped one, and this is also one of the youngest Shou Mei we've carried - less than three years. As a result it has a brighter, more cloud-like quality to it compared with older, darker shou mei such as Candlelight and Torchlight.
Sunglade has a notes of clover honey and caramel apple, with a very fragrant and sweet-tasting infusion that starts off pale gold before deepening to a reddish amber as the leaves unfold. Being a young tea, this cake is less expensive than its older counterparts, making it ideal for collecting and aging.