My first yellow tea

I'm not questioning the German, but it is hard to believe that a german vendor does not know where his tea - especially Yellow tea - comes from. Germans are known for their meticulousness. From the several german tea vendors I spoke to, and the german tee laden I've visited, they do prossess a good knowledge of the tea, though their knowledge on the quality is a separate issue.

My scepticism on the above also stems from the fact that not many areas in China produce Yellow tea. Yellow tea by definition is a green tea that's been post-fermented. The process of the post fermentation can be very tedious that many tea producers are 'cheating' these days by either marketing their Yellow tea as green tea, or process the Yellow tea as green and let it sit for a while in the warehouse before selling it as a yellow tea.

In my experience, one general rule is that green tea, after being kept for some time, develops a 'fermented' flavour - if the yellow tea has this flvaour, chances are it is a green tea kept past its sell by date, or yellow tea that's under fermented.

One of the strong characteristics of Yellow tea - to me - is its 'fishy' flavour like. And the liquor colour is yellow, not brown.

Depending on the varietal and requirement, Yellow tea is broadly divided as bud tea, small leaf tea, and large leaf tea:

Bud tea: Anhui province : Huoshan Huangya (mostly processed as green tea these days); Sichuan province : Mengding Huangya; Hunan province: Junshan Yinzhen

Small leaf tea: Hunan province : Beigang maojian & Weishan maojian; Hubei province : Lu yuan cha;

Large leaf tea: Anhui province : Huoshan Huangdacha, Hubei province : Yingshan Huangcha; Guangzhou province : Guangdong Daye Qing

Danny

My local tea shoppe owner wasn't sure of the area. Maybe something got lost in translation. As best as I can tell from looking at the websites with yellow tea and pictures it is Huoshan Huangya Mt. Huo Yellow Sprout. What puzzled me was the yellow description of the leaf then I read 'pale yellow natural light'. I took mine outside and I can see pale yellow but since the bud is twisted it is light yellow where you see the down and dark elsewhere. I'll have to clean the pot and tea glass to be sure of the color especially if it is pale. I'm glad you said fishy but that was one impression I got but more like a nuance. But I've been drinking too much rancid cooked puerh and said nothing else could taste like that. I was also surprised to learn it is fermented so maybe it can. The prices on the web match the store. One other interesting web note yellow tea is always whole leaf. This looks like a sprout. I've seen plenty of whole leaf rolled longitudely not latitudely like this.

Jim

samarkand wrote:

If it is Mt Huo Yellow Sprout, the buds are short and sharpish, not twisted. The colours are mostly dull yellow and green on the bud, and darker yellow (closing in on pale brown) on the 'fish' leaf.

The fishy smell is more of a nuance, you are right. & the brewed leaf would be a bud and 1/2 leaf, all of equal length.

Danny

snip

Oh Danny, I am SO confused yet again, for this defines Pu'erh, or so I thought.

I haven't caught such a flavor in yellow tea, but I've got some Mend Ding Huang Ya here before me, and I'll pop some in the pot, just to test your fishy theory.

Jim, you are getting a lot more milage out of your yellow tea than I ever did. It sounds like a gold mine of comeradery (sp???) there. I lived in Germany for some short time long ago, and I found the people rather more meticulous than we as a people are here in the USA. So, why not with tea? Finally, congratulations on your first yellow tea. Have you tried the new rare purple teas?

major snippage

Michael

When the owner puts the tea on the shelf he'll identifiy where it came from. This is long thin twisted leaf more like a bean sprout than what you are describing. I didn't seen anything else besides Mt Huo Yellow Sprout on the limited websites. Maybe in this case it might be something not even available on the web. I can drink Ceylon teas without having to know the districts, or puerh without knowing the factories. It would be interesting to know the origin of the yellow tea but more important it is yellow tea and not some ripoff. I just didn't know the term yellow tea also means leaf and tea color with fermentation. It's just when terms like this make it to the Western market it means something else. Thanks for your valuable information.

Jim

samarkand wrote:

All you have to do is post a thread about yellow tea and mention the leaf and color is brown because the lighting isn't right and your teapot isn't clean, the leaf is thin and wispy like a bean sprout, and leave out the fact it might taste fishy like some rancid cooked puerh. My local tea shoppe owner is meticulous as they come. I put him on the spot when I asked where it came from like it escaped his mind but I walked away with some and didn't have to wait for it to hit the shelves. I trust him enough so I don't have to call back like a pest and will eventually find the origin and in the meantime reply on this group for the particulars of yellow tea. Recently he is adding more eclectic teas for the connoisseur. I don't think the purple teas whatever that is can be far behind the Indian oolongs whatever that is. I broached the subject of a tea tasting from my pu collection but I could tell he wasn't comfortable because he admitted the tastings are still for neophytes who have been drinking tea less than 5 years with more group think than individual experience.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote:

Haha! Exactly the same thought when I was typing that!

There is however one major difference: water. Pu'er makers speed up the fermentation process by hydro-thermal fermentation, increasing the microbe activity on the tea, Yellow tea makers do not use water. After the tea is pan-fried to about 40% dryness, it is roasted to about 70% dryness. While the tea is hot it is packed and stored up to 7 days to allow it to ferment. When the tea makers decide the tea is about done, it is returned to the roast and baked up to 95% dryness.

What Jim had is probably the small or large leaf tea variety, not the bud tea. Mengding Huangya is a yellow tea with slightly different characteristic. Good & 'real' quality Mengding Huangya is truly difficult to obtain, and its price per ounce is worth almost as much as those prize-winning green teas. & I had only 3 small cups of it once...the others that I have tried since are nothing like that one time. What we usually have are teas of a lesser grade, and mostly in what I would term 'an awkard position' between a green and yellow tea. That said, the Mengding Huangya tastes more like green tea, with a 'brothy' texture. What I can describe in food term is that it is like a green tea broth with kombu, while most of the other yellow teas are more of a kombu broth with green tea...& I'm getting the itch for Japanese food now...haha!

Danny

Danny,

I got this tea called "que she" which basically translates to bird tongue. I bought it in Sichuan, and I have heard some people refer to it as yellow tea and some as green tea. Which classification does it fall under; I've always wondered.

Heard of it?

I am over the bud hangup. It tooks me many years to realize Sowmee was good as Yinzhen. I just wished there was a cheap version of Yellow tea. The second place steer is cheaper at the feedlot than the prize-winner at the county fair.

Jim

samarkand wrote:

Hi Mydnight,

I would prefer to think of 'que she' (sparrow tongue) as an indication of the shape of the tea than the way it is processed.

How did you find the taste of the tea? I once bought a tea called 'Zao Chun Huang Ya' (Early Spring Yellow Bud), but it turned out to leaned towards green tea rather than yellow tea!

Danny

I must thank the group for discussing yellow tea, since up of the message date (10/26/05)I had never heard of it! I did a search of the on-line tea dealers I have used in the past and founf only one yellow tea available: Anhui Yellow "Reserve Tea" from In Pursuit of Tea. Well, It came today and while I can not judge the quality of the tea, I have to say I liked it very much.

Back in late spring I wanted to thank the tea gods for finally delivering to me the tea I had been looking for for decades. I was wrong. What I was looking for was yellow tea! I may have had a clue in the fact that the Dragon Well I received back then was in a green paper bag and the unidentified tea was in a yellow paper bag. But by buying a lot of the "wrong" teas I was introduced to a lot of good tea.

Bill Lubarsky

Of course, but I don't know how to translate it, so I figured saying it translated directly into bird tongue would be ok.

It's hard to say, but I think my que she tastes a little more like yellow tea than green tea. I know this doesn't do anything classification wise, but it does turn the water yellow instead of green; thus the bosses explanation that it's yellow tea, I guess. I do wish I had some that were fresh enough to drink now, though. I have about a fourth of a kilo of the stuff left, but it's too old to drink.

I know a guy that holds a doctorate in tea (whatever that means) from Sichuan, so I guess I can try to get ahold of him and ask him about it. I'll get back to you on this one.

I agree with you on this point. I have actually found some great teas after the boss tried to lie to me about what a tea actually was. For instance, one boss was trying to pass off some Yun Mu (green tea) as being Mao Jin and I found I really enjoyed the Yun Mu.

It hasn't been discussed so far but wouldn't a fermented tea get 'better' with age? I think aged tea rates with virgin monkeys picking leaves from trees on cliffs in the moonlight. I also think limited tasting of tea type isn't good for conclusions. You drink enough darjeeling and flushes are the main factor. You drink puerh and Qinq Mao grade is main factor. You drink Ceylon teas and districts are the main factor. Maybe with yellow tea locale will be more important than taste. I can say my yellow tea has a different taste but nothing to lose sleep over if it became stale tomorrow.

Jim

Mydnight wrote:

Are we talking about the cheating "wet blanket" approach to Pu'erh here?

Don't we mean "oxidize" here, not "ferment"?

Japanese food sounds like just the thing.

Michael

Space snipped-for-privacy@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com10/28/05

Ha, truer words were never spoken. When I make travel recommendations for people, I always say, Visit the second highest mountain and the second most famous city. All the other fools will be crowded together on an in the first. Besides, you can't see that beautiful peak from the summet of that peak, get it? As for Yinzhen, Bai Mudan, or Sow Mee (is that right?), the rule of course is whatever floats your tea boat.

Michael

Yup, as in most cooked pu'er post 1995...

No, it's fermentation in this case.

Okay I got a response from the owner of the local tea shoppe. He said the Yellow tea was from Guangzhou. Isn't that a city in Guangdong province? Day Ye Qing means big leaf green.

Jim

samarkand wrote:

But it's not all from Guangdong. You have others like Yin Zhen (Silver Needle) and Huangtang (yellow soup).