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“I was absolutely shocked and amazed when I opened this month’s Steepster Select box (the box we receive in April is actually May’s box. Confusing, I know, but I’m sort of glad that they do it like...” Read full tasting note
“Oh this smells good. Seriously seriously good. Thick and sweet and rich and nectar-y and a tiny tiny hint of green and floral but mostly rich, dark yum. The smell reminds me a lot of Samovar’s...” Read full tasting note
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Ancient Yellow Buds, Organic Fair Trade Yellow Tea
This tea has such a wonderfully unique profile with a rich, sweet and savory flavor accented by notes of peeled apples and honeysuckle. Yellow Buds resembles white tea silver needle and is composed of a single, ripe bud shoot. It was harvested during the 2nd week of April in Mannong Manmai and handcrafted with artisan methods inspired by Hunan’s famous Jun Shan Yin Zhen yellow piling process. Usually, yellow teas are made with small leaf or medium leaf varietals from central and eastern China. This is a one of a kind Yellow Tea made with Mannong Manmai’s ancient heirloom broad leaf tea trees. This is our first year to make this tea and we chose to release it for Fair Trade month as an example of the unqiue, new style teas we can produce in the traditional Pu-erh areas of Yunnan. It is very limited and we’ll do our best to make more of it next spring.
Use a porcelain guywan, glass teapot or a Ho-hin and fill it half full. Use 180˚F water and infuse the 1st infusion for 2 minutes, 2nd infusion for 3 minutes, 3 rd infusion for 4-5 minutes and all subsequent infusions for 5-7 minutes.
Ingredients: Organic Fair Trade Certified™ yellow tea.
Origin: Yunnan, China.
Rishi Tea specializes in sourcing the most rarefied teas and botanical ingredients from exotic origins around the globe. This forms a palette from which we craft original blends inspired by equal parts ancient herbal wisdom and modern culinary innovation. Discover new tastes and join us on our journey to leave ‘No Leaf Unturned’.
I steeped this according to package directions — a bit hotter and a bit longer than I would for a green tea. The package says this is a green tea in one place and a yellow tea in another, but the consensus online seems to be this is a yellow tea.
I haven’t had that many yellow teas, but the ones I’ve had seem more like green teas than anything else.
This one, though, looks like a white tea — like a silver needle. The leaves are long and twisty when dry, and take up so much room in the spoon (with a lot of air in between) that I decided to weigh rather than rely on a spoon measurement.
This tea has received a lot of love on Steepster in the past so I’m excited to try it.
In the packet, the leaves have a smell that sometimes comes across to me as rice, and sometimes as nutty, but in both cases with a tinge of sweetness.
The tea is basically colorless and clear. If I look really hard, I can make out a rose-yellow tint. I get very little aroma from the steeped tea which is puzzling given that a lot of other notes seem to get a honey, or butter, or sweet rich nectar. I get, weirdly, some sweetness and something that reminds me of vanilla. This might be the honey/nectar others smell.
Sadly, I also don’t get a lot of flavor out of this tea. Maybe for the same reason I have a hard time with white teas — I often feel cheated. Where others taste all kinds of miraculous things, I taste faintly sweet or vegetal hot water. Perhaps my palate requires a more in your face flavor? Or perhaps I’m steeping this wrong.
I’m tempted to amp up everything next time (leaf, water temp, and steeping time) and see if it makes a difference.
But right now this tea is making me sad because everyone loves it and it’s doing nothing for me.
Sob.
Flavors: Nectar, Nuts, Rice, Vanilla
I generally overleaf whites in order to get enough flavour out of them. It’s always a treat when I do, but I’ve certainly had my fair share of cups of “did I even put the infuser in this?” sadness.
I used 5 grams — next time I’ll bump it up and see if that helps.