Tea Information:

Leaf Type:  Green

Where to Buy:  Mandala Tea

Tea Description:

Like many of China’s famous greens, this tea also has a rich history.  Known in China as Ding Gu Da Fang (Valley Peak Da Fang), it was named after the Buddhist monk who originally grew the plants on Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) centuries ago.

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

This is my first tea that I’ve tried from this new tea company (or perhaps I should say, a company that is new to me!) and based upon this very positive experience, I am glad it won’t be the last tea I taste from them.  I am absolutely LOVING this tea.

In the website description of this tea, Mandala Tea compares it to a LongJing (aka Dragon Well).  And while I do enjoy a good Dragon Well Tea and can see where Mandala Tea is coming from with such a comparison, I have to say that I prefer this Ding Gu Da Fang to most Dragon Well teas that I’ve tried. It is lighter, sweeter and smoother than a typical LongJing.

There is such a charming nutty tone to this tea.  It is light and crisp and reminds me of the snap (or crunch) you’d experience when biting into a cashew.  It has a creamy smooth flavor that reminds me of the mild, creamy taste of a delicious roasted nut.  The texture is light and clean, with a very mild astringency at the tail of the sip.

The sweetness and smoothness of this tea reminds me a bit of a yellow tea, so I have categorized this as both a green tea and a yellow tea, because even though it is a green tea, it has so many characteristics that remind me of a yellow tea.  This is an extraordinary tea; I highly recommend it.

Tea Information:

Leaf Type:  Yellow

Where to Buy:  East Pacific Tea Co.

Product Description:

Yellow tea is one of the rarest types of tea to touch the earth. Halfway between white and green, this tea provides the best of both worlds: high in antioxidants and rich in flavor.

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

Yellow tea is my favorite tea, so I am always excited when the opportunity presents itself to try one that I’ve not yet tasted.  This is a fantastic yellow with its  delicate, creamy taste and a hint of nutty flavor in the background.

It has a silky mouthfeel to it, but I notice that it is not as prominent a mouthfeel as I’ve come to expect from a yellow tea, and there is a hint of tangy astringency that was also quite unexpected.  Neither of these things are bad or render this beautiful yellow tea “off” in any way, it just makes it a little different than the rest.

The tea is sweet with brown sugar-ish kind of notes – it is very pleasant and ties in well with the aforementioned nutty tones of this tea.  There is a vegetative note that arrives about mid-sip, and it is reminiscent of steamed bitter greens with a touch of butter.

It’s quite a delicious tea, sweet yet savory, and an absolute pleasure to sip.

Tea Information:

Leaf Type:  Yellow

Where to Buy:  Mark T. Wendell

Product Description: 

This rare yellow tea from China’s Anhui province is comprised of beautiful hand-crafted leaves and downy silver buds. This tea is notable for its rich, full and smooth tasting floral infusion. When brewed, our Yellow Sprouting produces a naturally sweet and refreshingly clean tasting cup of tea.

Taster’s Review:

This Yellow tea is one of the newest additions to the Mark T. Wendell collection of teas.  And you know I’m excited about it; yellow Tea is my favorite!

There is just something about yellow tea that no other tea type can seem to duplicate.  It has similarities of white tea, green tea and Oolong tea, but, it isn’t quite like any of them … if that makes sense.  It has some of the delicate qualities of a white tea (and sometimes a green tea, depending upon the green), it has some of the light vegetative qualities of some green teas, and then it has a similar mouthfeel and smoothness of an Oolong.

This Huo Shan tastes incredibly fresh, and the sprouting buds are tiny.  Very young leaves. After infusing, I ate a few of the leaves, and they are very tender to the tooth, and so sweet and gentle tasting.

The light colored liquor is sweet and possesses a grassy taste.  It is sweet and refreshing.  The mouthfeel is very soft and silky.  And it is absolutely incredible.

If you haven’t yet tried yellow tea, you really should.  And this Huo Shan Yellow Sprouting Tea is a good place to start!

Tea Information:

Leaf Type:  Yellow

Where to Buy:  Chi of Tea

Product Description:

This rare tea was imperial tribute tea in the Tang, Ming and Qing Dynasty. The processing method was said to be lost and only to be re-discovered after the 70s, since then, it has been sent as tribute tea to China National Departments every year.

The aroma of the dry leaf is gentle with a hint of sweet hay and the liquor has a soft, fresh sappy aroma of great charm, with a warm toasty edge and a delicate vegetal taste that lingers on the tongue. This is the best of the harvest, which produces a slightly more refined, lighter liquor, yet retaining the characteristics of a green tea.

Learn more about this tea here.

Taster’s Review:

I love yellow tea!  And this may just be the BEST yellow tea I’ve yet to taste.  It’s absolutely extraordinary!

It tastes and smells incredibly fresh.  It is sweet and vegetative, smooth and mellow.  When I inhale the aroma before taking a sip, it is like breathing in the clean air of a grassy meadow, with the fragrance of wildflowers dancing in the air.  That is very much what it tastes like, too.

It is because of this type of experience that yellow tea is my favorite.  I love the way it smells and tastes, and I love the way it makes me feel when I sip it.  And somehow, these yellow buds from Chi of Tea taste even fresher than others that I’ve tried.

If you adore yellow tea as I do, I strongly recommend trying these Farm Fresh yellow buds.  You’ll be glad you did.

Tea Information:

Leaf Type:  Yellow

Where to Buy:  Upton Tea Imports (although this tea is no longer available)

Product Description:

Produced in the Yunnan district from heirloom tea bushes, this selection has a pedigree as unique as its character. The flavor is ethereal, with delicate, sweet notes that some have likened to apricot and apple. The finish is mellow and sweet. Supplies are limited.

Taster’s Review:

Ah!  How I love yellow tea.  My absolute favorite leaf type.  It is so gentle, sweet, and soothing.  Yes, I would have to agree with the description, this is indeed an ethereal tea experience.

I actually ordered this tea a year ago (Upton Tea Imports includes the date that the tea is packaged for an order on their packaging – including their sample packages!  It is a very nice feature, one I wish more tea companies would begin to utilize).  I didn’t realize how long ago it had been since I placed the order, and I am amazed at just how flavorful the tea is now, a year later.

The aroma is sweet and fruit-like, reminding me a bit of what my olfactory nerves would experience if I were walking through an apple orchard in bloom on a breezy day.  The fragrance translates into the flavor, as I can taste hints of apple in the flavor.

The flavor is very delicate, perhaps even more delicate than a typical yellow tea might be, reminding me more of a silver needle, but with a complexity that I’ve yet to find in a white tea.  It has a light sweetness to it that reminds me of honeysuckle.  There is even an underlying tone of creaminess to this tea that is very indulgent, reminiscent of the finest milk Oolong.  The mouthfeel is velvet-y soft.

Such a remarkable, beautiful yellow tea.  I do hope that Upton Tea Imports brings this one back the next time it is harvested!

Tea Information:

Leaf Type:  Yellow

Where to Buy:  Canton Tea Co.

Product Information:

Only the valuable, tender young leaf buds picked from high up on the cool misty peak of Mount Meng can be considered true Meng Ding Huang Ya. It is made in the original mountainous area where tea cultivation dates back more than 2,000 years and is a very famous tea. It was once made as an Imperial Tribute Tea during the Tang Dynasty (meaning it was only made for the Emperor and his Court) and is still hugely sought after.

Meng Ding Huang Ya has yellowish green leaves with a fresh, raw nutty aroma. Because the leaves come from the cooler, higher level of the mountain, the buds have a less even, thinner appearance. Once they are infused, they become plump and soft and settle upright at the bottom of the vessel. Brew in a glass pot to appreciate this unusual quality.

The liquor is bright yellow with a smooth, fresh taste that offers a sweet, nutty flavour with a hint of citrus.

Taster’s Review:

I love Yellow Tea.  It is my favorite type of tea leaf.  In fact, I love it so much that I bought a Yixing tea mug just for my yellow tea.  At the time of this writing, I own three Yixing mugs:  one for yellow tea, one for jasmine tea, and one for Ali Shan Oolong.

But let’s get back to the tea that is in the mug that sits before me… this Meng Ding Huang Ya from Canton Tea is excellent.  I steeped this tea in my gaiwan; I am sipping the combination of the first four infusions from my Yixing mug.  A superior quality yellow tea such as this one submits to many infusions, I will get another full mug out of these leaves – a total of eight infusions.

The flavor is so amazing.  There is a sweet, nutty flavor.  Not a toasty nut taste, but more of a creamy nut taste – like the flavor of blanched nuts.  There are notes of flower that weave in and out of the sip, as well as a hint of sweet, tangy citrus that rests upon the palate in the finish. I also taste a note of melon that arrives at the start of the sip and melds nicely with the nutty note previously mentioned.

There is a slight bitterness that hits the palate about mid-sip.  This bitterness is a savory one.  It is as if it is part of the nutty flavor which starts out sweet and ends with a hint of bitter.  This note enhances the overall experience by cutting through some of the sweeter tones and adding dimension to the taste.

A soft mouthfeel coats the palate – it’s almost cushion-y soft!  The barely-there note of astringency cleans this softness away in the finish so that you want to take another sip just to experience the mouthfeel.  It’s like the palate glides along the surface of a cloud – it’s that kind of heavenly experience.

This yellow tea from Canton Tea Co. is a perfect example of why I love yellow teas so much.  It’s absolutely exquisite … perfectly divine!

Tea Information:

Leaf Type:  Yellow

Where to Buy:  Upton Tea Imports

Product Description:

The attractive leaves consist of tender buds and fine leaf sets. The cup is full-flavored, with a delightfully refreshing character. The aroma has a light, peppery note, which translates to a wonderful mouth feel. This was the best yellow tea we cupped in 2009, and it is highly recommended.

Taster’s Review:

I adore yellow tea.  It is probably my favorite type of tea, but it is something that I don’t indulge in very often.  It is more rare than other types of tea, and due to that rarity it’s a bit more expensive.

But it is not really the expense of the yellow tea that prohibits me from indulging in the yellow tea very often.  It is because I am of the belief that if I were to enjoy it on a daily basis, yellow tea would lose some of it’s “special-ness.”  Therefore, I have chosen to make yellow tea a bit of a ceremony for me – I even purchased a Yixing clay mug just for my yellow teas!

This Huo Shan is a remarkable yellow tea.  It has a sweet, complex flavor.  Notes of flower can be experienced in the aroma and in the taste.  There is also a light, somewhat sharp spice note that approaches at about mid-sip that adds to the intrigue of the cup.

Nutty notes are introduced throughout the sip.  A stronger floral note comes through in the finish that is reminiscent of honeysuckle.  That honeysuckle taste lingers through to the aftertaste.

A truly delicious yellow tea – a very special tea, indeed!

Tea Information:

Leaf Type:  Yellow

Where to Buy:  Dammann Frères

Company Description:

This tea is rare as it can only be plucked at springtime. It comes from the mountain Meng, in Sichuan province, where tea growing started during Han dynasty, more than 2000 years ago. At that time, yellow tea was only served at the imperial court. The 5cm long leaves are green with a pale yellow hue. The interesting colour and flavour of that tea come from a very unique processing technique. The fresh leaves undergo a swift withering and are then rolled in small quantities in “Niu Pi Zhi”, a kind of old yellow paper, in which they are left to dry naturally. This tea shows a pale yellow cup with a mellow character with hints of walnut.

Taster’s Review:

This is much different from the yellow teas that I’m used to, but it is certainly just as enjoyable.

Actually, when I first saw the leaf, I didn’t think it was a yellow tea, because the leaves are quite dark.  They have the appearance of a black tea, or possibly a well-oxidized Oolong.

The flavor is also quite different from other yellow teas – this is stronger in flavor than most yellow teas which are usually a bit more delicate.  This has a strong nutty quality and virtually no grassy or vegetative quality except at the finish, where there is an ever-so-subtle hint of a vegetal note.  Not grassy, just a hint of vegetation.

It is smooth and rich-tasting, with no bitterness, and very little astringency.  It’s really quite sublime!  It has a very pleasing buttery note that is sweet and creamy and complements the nutty note (which is likened to a walnut in the company description of this tea, provided above).  It’s kind of roasty-toasty, but not too much, I think that even those that find they do not care for toasty tasting teas would find this quite enjoyable.

This is truly a lovely tea to experience.  I have said it before (numerous times, even!):  “I have found a new favorite from the brothers Dammann!”  But… this time, I mean it!  This is fantastic!