TeaChat

braven wrote:What exactly is yellow tea?

It is a differently processed tea. Just like White is different then Green, Yellow is just processed different enough that its considered its own categories.

I believe its dried slower creating a partial oxidation/fermentation, but not enough to be considered an oolong tea.

Yellow tea is a bit of an enigma to even most seasoned tea drinkers, myself included.

A picture of Meng Ding Huang Ya, which is a yellow tea that I find tastes alot like cooked pea's.

braven wrote:What exactly is yellow tea?

Like many other great things, yellow tea was created by mistake. After the "kill green" step in green tea making (when enzymes are killed), if the tea is not cooled and dried soon enough, tea leaves will be oxidized to certain degree and become yellow (similar phenomenon can be seen if cooked vegetable/beans are kept humid and hot for a while).

Unlike green tea, yellow tea is oxidized tea. Unlike other oxidized tea, the oxidation of yellow tea is driven by hot and humid environment after its enzyme loses activity. The oxidation in black tea, oolong and puerh is mainly driven by the enzymes in tea leaves.

dooble wrote:Heh, I've been drinking 'Yellow Needle Yunnan' for a while now and I got to say it's one of the most fascinating teas I've tasted.
There are interesting hints of chocolate and melon in the taste but what I love the most is the calming effect of the tea. What ever problems I have, it solves them right away in some weird invert way .

Where did you get yours from?

I've been wanting to try yellow tea since I've heard of it. It sounds great for when I'm in the mood for a subtle brew.

I need to make sure my bank account's up to it with college, though...not that it's particularly expensive, but that I simply don't have much to spend.

I can vouch for this one,
http://www.teatrekker.com/store/tea/yel ... g+Ming.php

they also have the buds/needles and it looks similar.
As for calming, I've heard yellows are high in theanine content

braven wrote:What exactly is yellow tea?

Yellow tea is not really oxidized as was mentioned by other posters. The difference between yellow tea and early spring green teas is a single additional step in the processing called men huan, which also defines this class of tea.

Yellow tea follows the same processing as green tea, except for the men huan step. After plucking only buds or doing a mao feng pluck of leaves in the early spring, yellow tea undergoes the same initial drying as green tea. However, right before the initial firing, yellow tea undergoes men huan in which the leaves are slightly steamed and then covered by a cloth to bask in and absorb their own aromatics for several hours. Because it is steamed yellow tea really doesn't undergo oxidation more than the very small amount, if any, that green tea experiences.

The extra step is supposed to make yellow tea more mellow, unlikely to have a grassy or assertive taste and almost never having astringency. Anhui and Sichuan Provinces are the most famous for yellow teas. Yellow teas are some of the most rare because the men huan is an expensive extra step and therefore that is why many in the West don't really know about this class of tea.

I've had three different yellow teas--one that I could not remember eyre it came from, and one from jing tea shop, both with the extra mellow character I'd expected, and then a 'silver needle yellow tea' from Hunan, which was astringent and bitter under very mild brewing condition.

I found references to it in my tea books and online, but none that describe the tea in detail, at least not enough to know whether this should be more astringent than other yellow teas. Do you know if it is made by the same process at the other yellow teas?