Foam

This will not be a clean and tidy answer: whatever is formed on the tealeaves that is not dissolvable immediately and that stick to the tiny air bubbles in the water when the water hits the leaves.

So should I blanch the White Peony before steeping? I have not seen “foam” though.

Blanching White Peony before infusion will render the taste fresher and more distinctive. Not all teas have this foam condition.

This is interesting but I am a little confused. So both black tea and oolong are fermented too not oxidized? This is different from the writings in your site. Is the residue safe to consume? Because I do not blanch my tea, I am a little concerned.

I know that is confusing. Theoretically blacks and oolongs are oxidized through the catalytic actions of the leaves’ enzymes. However, fungal spores exist all around us. Their activities on the tealeaves basically cannot be avoided. No one has (as far as I know) done any quantitative study of the amount of biochemical changes caused specifically by these spores. However, the same thing can be said of almost anything that happens not in a totally sterilized environment. That should be 99% of human activities.