If you ask someone if they have ever had yellow tea most likely they will make a strange face and say no! YELLOW tea is one of the 6 major types of teas in the world along with WHITE, GREEN, OOLONG, BLACK(RED), and Dark (PU-ERH). All of these teas come from the same plant Camellia sinensis and its varieties. Tea is a very large topic with many books written about it!

Back to YELLOW tea, yes there is such a tea, it is not widely known outside of China where it is produced. My yellow tea is JUNSHAN YINZHEN. It comes from Junshan island located in the Hunan Province of China. In fact all the 6 tea types are still grown in China.

The area where the tea plants grow for yellow tea is surrounded by flowering shrubs giving the tea a naturally floral aroma. The yellow is not from the tea leaves, they are picked green, one bud and 2 leaves called a PEKOE. The leaves are picked at exactly the right time called a FLUSH, it is the special way the leaves are handled that creates the yellow tea.

All the special steps and for how long each step happens are all part of the tea making process. Every tea type goes through very different steps to achieve the desired result. With yellow tea the tea leaves experience a step called MEN HUANG where the leaves are wrapped tightly in paper. The packages are then stored in a warm humid environment where they under go non-enzymatic oxidation. This is where the cells in the tea leaves breakdown, after the desired time the leaves are slowly dried.

Then three yellows have been created: YELLOW DRIED LEAVES, YELLOW BREWED TEA and YELLOW INFUSED LEAVES. The tea tastes a bit nutty with a floral note, not grassy like green tea, it is a very unique tea! (my tea doesn’t look especially yellow, I think I brewed it too long, when infusing tea leaves it is very important to pay strict attention to water temperature and brew time)