What is YELLOW TEA?
What is YELLOW TEA?
Yellow tea is produced in several Chinese provinces: Hunan, Anhui, Sichuan, Hubei and Guangdong.
Tea names almost always include the word "huang", which means "yellow" in Chinese. This color is significant in Chinese culture: it symbolizes the center of the world - China. Also, yellow means "earth," meaning fertility, stability, and support. In the Qing Dynasty, only members of the imperial family could wear yellow clothes and drink yellow tea.
By composition and properties, Chinese yellow tea is close to green tea. But the latter loses its freshness and lightness over time. Yellow, on the contrary, acquires an "autumnal" character in its aroma: smoke-baked notes and fruity-floral tones. It has a soft, deep flavor - denser than green. The degree of fermentation is 5-15%. When brewed, its teas line up vertically and move up and down.
Yellow tea is the rarest of the tea varieties.
Yellow Chinese tea should not be confused with yellow Egyptian tea - khelba. The representative from Egypt is not made from the tea leaf, but from the bright yellow seeds of the plant fenugreek or hay fenugreek.
Why yellow tea is so rare?
For a long time, the technology of making yellow tea was kept secret. It was even banned from leaving the country until the 20th century. In the 1950s, the production of yellow tea stopped due to clashes during the Chinese Civil War. In 1971, the technology was revived. Tea began to be produced again for the people of China, along with this allowed the export of products from the country.
To get 1 kg of yellow tea, it is necessary to collect 50 thousand tea buds. Probably, because of the complex and labor-intensive technology such tea is not produced in other countries. Also, one of the versions of the low popularity of the variety is its taste, which is not bright and attractive enough for the buyer compared to black, green or flavored versions.
To produce yellow tea, only buds or buds with small leaves are used. If a superior quality product is desired, the buds and leaves are harvested before they are covered with fuzz.
Whatever the technology of yellow tea production, its distinctive feature is the obligatory stewing process.
The yellow color of the leaves is obtained through the process of post-fermentation - oxidation of enzymes. The same effect occurs with hay - it turns yellow after being exposed to air for a long time.
The leaves of this variety do not immediately become yellow, but acquire color in the production process - during stewing. In terms of composition and properties, the drink is close to green, but the taste is different. It has more smoky notes and fruity and floral tones.