Huo Shan Huang Ya

I feel slightly bad about stealing a lot of this tea from my boyfriend! Normally we don’t drink the same tea (he’s into Chinese greens), but I’ll try at least a cup for curiosity. Well, this one caught me by surprise.

This is the second yellow tea I’ve tried, so I can’t accurately make associations with other teas. It’s very nutty- a quality which I really, really love. It also has a corn-like taste to it. It almost reminds me of eating corn slathered with some butter (which I never add to corn interestingly enough). Otherwise, it’s pretty light and delicate, which I would expect from a Chinese tea, but it’s unique enough to hold my attention and warrant further exploration into Chinese territory. So far this tea beats all the Chinese greens I’ve had, though!

If I’m going to casually drink some tea, I usually walk to my shelf, reach out for something else, and then quite often in the end I pick up this tea.

First I thought that this tea is a mere curiosity, it tasted so weird. It has light, spring-like sweetness, but also there is a weird taste which I am unable to name. I’ve found variations of that taste on Mengding Ganlu, and Amazing Green Tea’s Huang Shan Maofeng, but not this “weird”.

A sign of the quality of this tea is its ability to withstand temperature, I’ve been brewing this with water ranging from 70°C to boiled water, without a note of over-brewing. Also I have been steeping this for 5 minutes, waiting for leaves to sink. That works well, as well as five-second “washes” with hot water.

Definitely has the sweet corn notes that many yellow teas have, but has extra grassiness. Overall, mellow with a pleasant aftertaste. Prepared per instructions in a porcelain gaiwan using two heaping teaspoons of tea, 185’F water for 1 minute for the first two infusions, increasing time and temperature for subsequent infusions.