Huang Cha Yellow Tea

I have spent the last couple of days working my way through a 25 g sample pouch of this tea. Most of my experience with yellow tea comes from Huoshan Huang Ya, so this was something new for me. Overall, I found this to be a very enjoyable yellow tea.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 185 F water for 5 seconds. This infusion was chased by 14 additional infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 7 seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, I detected a floral aroma reminiscent of chrysanthemum, as well as straw, sorghum, and butter. The rinse brought out subtle cream, caramel, sugarcane, and damp grass aromas. The first infusion brought out marigold and a subtle nuttiness. In the mouth, I detected flavors of chrysanthemum, sorghum, butter, caramel, straw, sugarcane, cream, and grass underscored by subtle impressions of roasted nuts. Subsequent infusions brought out marigold, leaf lettuce, mineral, hazelnut, date, honeydew, and roasted chestnut aromas and flavors. The later infusions were heavy on minerals balanced by nuts, grass, butter, lettuce, and passing hints of flowers.

This was an interesting tea and I really liked it. Compared to the yellow teas I am used to, this one was much sweeter, fruitier, and more floral. I have no clue how it would compare to other teas of this type, but I found a lot to like and would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a sweet, approachable tea.