Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Yellow
Where to Buy: What-Cha Tea
Tea Description:
A rare tea produced only a few days each Spring that features a great bamboo nose and a slight nutty taste followed by a lingering sweet after-taste.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Yay! Yellow Tea! It’s been quite some time since I’ve tried a “new-to-me” yellow tea for review. Yellow Tea is my all time favorite type of tea. I love it. And I LOVE this Huoshan Huang Ya Yellow Tea from What-Cha Tea!
To brew this tea, I used my gaiwan and measured one bamboo scoop of tea into it, and then I heated the water to 170°F. First I rinsed the leaves with the water, by infusing them for 15 seconds and then straining off the liquid and discarding it. Then I steeped the first infusion for 45 seconds and added 15 seconds to each subsequent infusion. I strained each infusion into my very special Yellow Tea Yi Xing mug. This mug is a little larger than my Ali Shan and Jasmine Yi Xing mugs, so I can fit 6 infusions of tea in the mug. So that’s what I did. I’m now sipping on the results of the first six infusions of this tea. 
Mmm! Sweet and delicious. The texture is creamy and smooth. The sip starts out sweet with nutty nutty notes. By mid-sip, I’m picking up on notes of flower. The sweetness remains throughout the sip. The aftertaste is delicately floral with a light sweetness.
What I like best about Yellow tea versus say, a white or green tea or even a green Oolong is that there are elements of most of these teas: I taste creamy notes that you might find in these three tea types, but it’s not quite as heavy in texture as an Oolong or even a green tea might be. It has subtle floral tones but they aren’t as sharp as with these other teas types. And there is less of a vegetal note than with these other three tea types. In fact, I’m having a hard time detecting ANY vegetal note to this cup, and I’m searching for it. There is a very, very faint vegetal note hiding in the distance behind the sweet, nutty flavors and the notes of flower in the breeze.
It’s simply a wonderful tea, and this yellow from What-Cha is beyond wonderful. Better than wonderful. It’s absolutely, exquisitely perfect!
Farm Fresh Huoshan Yellow Bud Tea from Chi of Tea
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.