Another tea from the lovely Lena. I’ve never had a yellow tea before so I was excited to try it – and a bit nervous when I heard how delicate they are.
So let’s start with the steeping instructions: “Use a porcelain guywan, glass teapot or a Ho-hin and fill it half full”
Riiight, because I have any of those things. I had to look up what a Ho-hin is sadly enough. I do have a glass tea pot, but it’s a huge two liter one so filling that half-way would be a bit difficult. I’ve seen guywans in Asian stores in Vancouver and all I can say that me drinking from one of those is an accident waiting to happen. I can just see myself pressing too hard on the upper rim and flipping the whole thing over onto me. DX
So I ended up using about half of the sample Lena gave me (about a tbsp) in a 10 oz coffee mug. The dry leaves were covered in a thick coat of soft fuzz and they looked more silvery than yellow. The first steep for about 2 min yielded a pale-looking, delicate brew that smelled quite fragrant. The flavour is subtle and a bit vegetale, but with honey-sweet notes intertwined throughout. The steeped leaves absorbed water and unfolded a bit and I could see that they were, indeed, a pale yellowish-green shade.
The resteep was a little lighter but it still had that same green-sweet flavour. Some people have compared it to honeysuckle – I’ve never tried honeysuckle so I really can’t say. I could get more steeps out of the leaves, but I’m pretty tired so I think I’ll just head off to bed.
