What Is Yellow Tea?

Have you ever heard of yellow tea? Like white tea, yellow tea is a type of tea that is barely known in Japan.

Yellow tea is one of the categories of tea. To make yellow tea, tea leaves are pan-fried in the same way as green tea, and then repeatedly matured under forced high humidity for several days. This process is called men huang, and the leaves literally "writhe" and mature in the heat and humidity.

How yellow tea is made: men huang

Men huang is an essential process for understanding yellow tea.

If you break down the characters of men huang (悶黄), 悶 means "to writhe" and 黄 means "yellow". "Writhing until it turns yellow?!" is the meaning you can read from the characters. In fact, men huang is exactly what the name says!

Since the enzymes have already been deactivated by pan-frying, some say men huang is an oxidative reaction between components, while others say a trace amount of enzymes remains and contributes to the maturation.

In Japan, yellow tea is generally explained as a tea that undergoes post-fermentation by microorganisms. In reality, however, microorganisms play no part in the production of yellow tea.

However, in reality, the history of yellow tea is older than that of green tea. During the early days of green tea, many teas were produced using the methods for making yellow tea.

One of the distinctive processes of yellow tea production is called "Men Huang." This process involves allowing the green tea, after the initial pan-frying, to sit under specific moisture and temperature conditions. This step makes the tea's flavor milder and develops its unique flavor.

In the past, tea was not plucked from young buds as it is today; rather, relatively large, matured leaves were used. Consequently, the tea was very astringent, and the freshly processed tea exhibited strong bitterness, making it far from easy to drink.

It is speculated that the Men Huang process was a method to reduce the bitterness of the tea. This technique is also related to the production methods of Hei Mao Cha, the raw material for dark tea.

Junshan Yinzhen and Junshan Island

The most famous and expensive yellow tea is called Junshan Yinzhen. It is made only from tea leaves plucked on Junshan, a small island in Dongting Lake in Hunan Province. It is said to have been enjoyed as a tribute tea by the emperors of the Tang dynasty, and it has a very long history.

Junshan Yinzhen is the name of the yellow tea made on Junshan Island, an island in Dongting Lake about 15 km northeast of Yueyang, Hunan Province, China. In practice, many Junshan Yinzhen style teas are also made outside the island and sold on the market as Junshan Yinzhen. However, if you want genuine Junshan Yinzhen, you need to insist on tea from Junshan Island. There are two reasons why tea from Junshan Island is so special.

• Old tea trees that have been maintained since long ago still remain.
• The soil gives the tea a full, rounded body.

On Junshan Island, not only are the tea trees old, but all the tea is managed with organic methods close to natural farming. As a result, tea made on Junshan Island has a lingering aftertaste that tea made outside the island does not have. Tea grown in the soil of Junshan Island also has body, with a very full and rounded taste. This is why high-quality Junshan Yinzhen has a thick, silky texture.

Why genuine Junshan Yinzhen is hard to obtain

The problem in sourcing this tea is that Junshan Island is owned by only one company. Unlike Longjing, which is made by many producers, literally only one company produces Junshan Yinzhen. As a result, both the price and the volume are controlled exclusively, and in recent years simply obtaining the tea has become extremely difficult. Much of the Junshan Yinzhen is reserved in advance by government officials and wealthy company owners, and almost all of it is consumed as gifts.

Without a solid understanding of the quality definition of Junshan Yinzhen, you cannot tell which grade a sample belongs to, even after tasting it. It is a common story: even if you request the highest grade of Junshan Yinzhen, the tea you actually receive is usually a green tea style, a second plucking, or in some cases tea produced outside the island.

The aroma and flavor of Junshan Yinzhen

Junshan Yinzhen has a delicate, gentle aroma. It can be compared to the flesh of a freshly dug bamboo shoot, with a faint floral note. Because it is not a strongly aromatic tea, body and depth are very important in enjoying it.