Guide to Chinese Yellow Tea

The yellow teas are processed like green teas, but have a longer withering phase. Making yellow tea is an art, unfortunatly many techniques of processing it have been lost, because it’s a complicated and tedious process.

Jun Shan Yin Zhen - “Silver Needle” is a rare and famous tea from Jun Shan island – also called the king of yellow teas. This is the yellow variation of Silver Needle not to be confused with Bai Hao Yin Zhen. Picked only once a year – the day before Qing Ming festival.

Huo Shan Huang Ya- imperial tribute tea that dates back to the Ming dynasty. In dry form it has a shiny appearance and the liquer – a peppery and fresh taste. It is harvested at Mt. Huo. and consists of mostly buds.

Meng Ding Huang Ya - “Mt. Meng Yellow Sprout” is an imperial tribute tea that comes from the peak of Mount Meng, grassy with hint of nutty and sweet fregrance

Song Yang Ying Hou Cha -”Silver Monkey’s Paw” a rare, hihg quality tea from Zhejiang province produced in limited quantaties. The flavor is subtle, flowery and slightly nutty. It consists of carefully selected and hand-rolled tips.

Da Ye Qing -“Big Leaf Green” processed like green tea, but with a slower drying phase (just like most yellow teas), from Guangdong province

Huang Tang – “Yellow Soup” a tea from Zhejiang province

Guides – Chinese Oolong | Chinese White | Chinese Red | Japanese Tea

Yellow Tea

Yellow tea is a very rare and spacial chinese tea. It is processed similar to green tea, however the appearance of the leaves as well as the infusion is yellow. The objective in manufacturing yellow tea is to remove the grassy flavor typical for green teas. The drying phase is longer and the leaves are allowed to wither until yellow.

Historically yellow teas were known as the teas given as gifts and tax payment to the Chinese Emperor by peasants, thus they were the best quality teas. The name of the tea stems from yellow being the royal color, but those teas have little to do with what we know as yellow tea today, except for their quality.

The art of yellow tea is becoming extinct due to it’s complicated and time-consuming making process. The leaves are usually quickly friend in small quantities, then wrapped in cow skin paper and left to dry for a few hours. This process is repeated over a period of a few days until the tea is finished and has reached the appropriate color and flavor. It is produced in small volumes, even smaller then the exclusive white teas. However, thanks to the internet it’s not that hard to get ahold of them. The three most popular yellow teas are Meng Ding Huang Ya (yellow bud from Sichuan province), Jun Shan Yin Zhen (yellow silver needle from Hunan province) and Huo Shan Huang Ya (yellow bud from Anhui province).

When it comes to placing yellow tea on a scale of exclusiveness it’s usually between white and green tea. Yellow tea is perfect for those who don’t like the grassy taste of green tea.

 

Places where you can find yellow tea

http://www.teaspring.com/
http://jingtea.com/
http://www.sevencups.com/

Tea Types

It’s always good to know some basics of tea, so for starters I thought I would introduce different tea types. Generally we can divide tea types into two groups – tea that contains tea plant leaves and tea that does not.

Tea with tea leaves

These tea types are a result of how the leaves of the tea plant (camellia sinensis) have been processed. This process is called oxidation (sometimes refered to as fermentation) which is a chemical reaction that occurred then the tea leaves are picked and start to wither. Depending on how long the leaves have been exposed to it we can classify the following

White Tea – fast-dried and does not undergo oxidation, made of young tea leaves (often contains young tea buds and which are covered by fine, silky, white hairs) and has a low caffeine content, because the leaves have been dried quickly the chlorophyll in them was not broken down, thus the green color and grassy flavour of the infusion

Yellow Tea – does not undergo oxidation, but unlike green tea the chlorophyll in the leaves is broken down during processing, so the color becomes yellow and the flavor less grassy, usually harvested before green teas and always sold as whole leaf tea, yellow tea is quite rare in comparison to the other tea types

Green tea – goes through a minimal oxidation process and is quickly dried, the leaves are often cut and ground, the infusion has a mild flavor and is rich in antioxidants

Oolong Tea – semi-oxidized, exposed to different levels of oxidation (ranging between 10 – 70%), usually falls between black and green teas

Black tea – undergoes the oxidation process that changes the leaves’ color from green to black, thus has stronger and richer flavour, higher caffeine content and lower antioxidant content

Post-fermented tea – green tea which is allowed to age for several months to several years and exposed to humidity and oxygen, the ageing process alters the taste and smell of the infusion to a large degree, most recognized class of post-fermented teas is Pu-erh

Tea without tea leaves

Red tea (aka. rooibos tea) – tea of South African origin, made of a plant in the aspalathus genus, the specific red-brown color is acquired in the process of oxidation, since rooibos is a herbal tea it contains no caffeine

Herbal tea (aka. tisane) – made of anything other then tea leaves, with no caffeine, often contains a mix of dried flowers, seeds, berries, roots and other herbs (like rose petals, peppermint etc.)

Other types we can come across are Flavored Teas which are often a mix between tea leaves and herbal additives or tea leaves that have been soaked in natural or artificial flavors/oils