The name comes from a ghost said to haunt Pluckley, in Kent, reportedly the most haunted village in England, with sixteen alleged spirits attached to it and hers among the most famous. The story is set in the twelfth century: a woman buried in a white gown, later seen by a resident named Mr Winans one Christmas Eve in the library of Surrenden Dering manor. He fired a hunting rifle at the apparition, and the bullets are said to have passed straight through her before she vanished. The manor was demolished in 1952, though sightings near the local church continued after. Kent and Sussex Tea and Coffee Company built this black tea around that tale.
What's in the cup owes nothing to the ghost story. Grown in the United States, it pours coppery and light rather than dark, and the taste runs citrusy with a malty backbone, floral notes underneath, and threads of honey and even coffee running through it — an unusual combination for a black tea, closer to bright than heavy. Many treat it as a morning cup for that reason, leaning on the brightness against the malt.
Steep it in freshly boiled water for about five minutes. Kent and Sussex suggests honey or a squeeze of lemon, which echoes the tea's own citrus character, though it holds up fine served plain and black too, without much need for dressing up.
Black tea in general has long been drunk with an eye toward heart health and mental sharpness, and White Lady carries that same reputation on top of its ghost story. Neither claim is much more than folklore, worth taking with a grain of salt rather than as fact: the tea's real case for itself is what ends up in the cup.
