Yellow tea

Yellow tea is the smallest and rarest category in Chinese tea — small enough that a lot of vendors don't even stock it, rare enough that most of what's sold as yellow tea isn't really yellow tea. The defining step is men huang, a slow yellowing under cloth that converts some of the chlorophyll and softens the grassy edge a green tea would have. Done well, it tastes like a green tea with the corners filed off: still vegetal, still sweet, but rounder, hayier, with a quieter finish. Done lazily, it tastes exactly like a green tea, because that's what it is — the men huang step takes hours of attention and a lot of producers skip it. Junshan Yin Zhen is the famous one and most of what's sold under that name is fake; Mengding Huang Ya is more reliable. Brew temperatures sit between green and white (80–85°C), and the schedule is short and patient. Treat yellow tea as a curiosity category — worth meeting once for the comparison with green, not worth chasing as a daily drinker.

Teas in this category

• Huoshan Yellow Bud
  Huoshan County, Anhui, China

  Incredibly sweet and refreshing at lower temperatures, with a clean vegetal character that lacks the grassiness of green tea.

• Junshan Silver Needle
  Junshan Island, Dongting Lake, Hunan, China

  The rarest of China's yellow teas.

• Mengding Yellow Bud
  Mengding Mountain, Ya'an, Sichuan, China

  Velvety and mellow with a signature toasted-chestnut sweetness.

• Mo Gan Yellow Sprout
  Mo Gan Mountain, Deqing County, Zhejiang, China

  Light and refreshing with a smooth, clean character.