Is there really a need for the yellow tea category?
So I have been thinking for a while and not really sure that the yellow tea is really needed. What do you guys thing? Should this tea fall in a different category?
No in general. Think about the processes of how each tea is processed and do you feel it deserves its own category and why. Green tea is pulled off the plant and steamed or pan fried to stop the fermenting process and then dried. White tea is pulled off and allowed to whither and dry on its own in sunlight. Oolong tea is allowed to oxidize by either bruising or just allowing it to ferment under the hot sun to some degree. Black tea is fully oxidized. Now lets look at yellow tea. Yellow tea is pulled off the plant and kept damp as to allow the chlorophyll to oxidize and turn yellow.
Is this really that much different from Oolong?
There are differences between Oolong and Yellow. Your comparison is sort of like saying Oolong is not all that different from Black tea because they’re both fermented for a certain period of time. Or perhaps green and white are not all that different from one another because they’ve both not undergone the fermentation process.
They all come from the same plant, so they all have similarities from the start, but, each category is necessary because it is the process that makes them taste different, and even if the processes may seem similar they produce a different tea.
Yes, it is needed. It is a different tea and it should be categorized differently. It is not a white tea, it is not a green tea. Where would you suggest placing it?
Yes! It’s quite different and sometimes I have trouble finding them when they’re shoved under green or other labels.
Every 1 of the 6 basic categories of tea has its distinctive process that sets it apart from the rest:
Green tea: ‘Sha qing’ or ‘killing of the green’ is done from the onset- halting oxidization of the tea leaves hence green tea is completely un-oxidized.
White tea: Orthodox white tea is withered and dried (baking or sun-dried)- no ‘sha qing’ or rolling- hence its partially oxidized and appears in its natural state
Yellow tea: Processing of yellow tea differs across regions and styles- but without fail all of them undergo ‘men huang’- yellowing process where damp and heat causes the tea leaves (and brewed tea liquor) to turn yellow and lose some of the bitterness
Oolong tea: ‘yao qing’ or rattling of the tea leaves to cause bruising on the leaves and speed up the oxidization process.
Black tea: ‘Fermentation’ or more accurately oxidization- a process by which the tea leaves are placed in a room or otherwise to fully oxidize the leaves
Dark tea (erroneously classified as Pu-er which is a type of dark tea not a category on its own): ‘Heaping’- piling of leaves to cause it to truly ferment
Some ‘oolongs’ from non-core producing areas are actually black tea that have its oxidization process halted mid-way which is not an oolong, you can read more about this topic from this link.
http://teaguardian.com/nature_of_tea/Semiblack_vs_oolong.html
Bottom line: Teas are not classified on a whim, there are distinctive characteristics of each category
I can agree that commercially sometimes there is little need to have a separate category yellow tea since the variants available are quite few and in some cases (Junshan Silver Needles), beyond the target price range of most retail stores but from an academic standpoint, the classification still should stand.
Thank you for your informative post on this subject, Derek, I appreciate the knowledge you’ve shared with us here. And I do agree, each of these teas have their own distinctive characteristics and therefore deserve their own category.
Derek thanks a lot for that. I have yet to try yellow tea and was reading a bit of what i could find. This helps out a lot.
If you want to read more on this subject, you can read https://www.peonyts.com/learn-more-about-tea/classification-of-tea-tea-101/
Disclaimer- I wrote it :)
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