Dasha’s highest grade of yellow and a strong candidate for the most kush iteration of the region’s signature delicacy, Huoshan Huang Ya yellow tea.
Pristine heirloom tea gardens; meticulously harvested 1 bud – 1 leaf picking standard; 100% handmade traditional methods stubbornly adhered to, not only does this tea check all of the right boxes, this type of intentionality and level of purity is rarely found in the tea world.
Having made the pilgrimage to off-the-beaten-path Huoshan to stay with, assist, and learn from rebel purist Dasha twice now—with a bit more trust earned and dues paid—I feel privileged to access Dasha’s more full range of teas coupled with a higher fidelity understanding of what goes into them. Dasha and family exclusively produce tea in micro batches, with a three person crew harvesting in the mountains most days of the week in the spring, with hand-processing and intensive yellowing overseen back in their home factory unit in Da Hua Ping township.
A tea worth several slower sessions, notes of milk chocolate, sweetgrass, and moss interplay with buoyant greener aromatics retained through an extended yellowing procedure yields a gorgeous, balanced profile with endurance over an evolving session. Mellow yet with some shimmer, giving a comfortable chi to the body, Dasha’s Huang Ya is delivered naked, without static, standing tall in its structure as if you can peer lucidly through each layer, unmuddied as a spring-fed pond. The later steeps aren’t to be passed up, as the leaves reliably yield a peach-tinged, mineral-laden broth with entertaining exhale effects and empty cup aromatics.