Huo Shan Huang Ya (Huo Shan Yellow Bud)

AROMA

Refreshing fragrance.

TASTE

Vibrant tropical fruit flavours like passion fruit. If Kunshan Silver Needle is the king of yellow teas, Huo Shan Yellow Tea is like the queen of yellow teas. It has a pleasantly sour taste and is luscious and juicy, like honey in juice. For being so thick, it has a pleasant, animalic last note with a good sharpness.

COMPLEMENTS
Best enjoyed on its own or with garden salad and light sandwiches.

CONDIMENTS
Drink Plain.

Huo Shan Yellow Bud is a high-grade yellow tea from Huo Shan County, Anhui Province. This tea is made from soft, fine buds and processed by traditional roasting fire. The finest are those from Jinji Mountain (金鸡山) in Dahuaping, Jinzhuping (金竹坪) in Taiyang, Jinjiawan (金家湾) in Zhufoan, and Wumijian (乌米尖) in Yaojiafan, which are around 800 metres above sea level, and are known as the 'three gold and one bird'.

Huo Shan Yellow Bud was produced during the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD), and Lu Yu, known as the Tea Saint, introduced this special yellow tea in his famouse ancient tea book Cha Jing (the Tea Classic). The tea process was lost in the 1940s, but was recreated by three old tea masters in 1971 (some say 1972). To ensure freshness, the tea leaves are plucked in the spring morning and processed through five complex steps, all of which must be completed by the evening of the same day. Another famous yellow tea, Kunshan Silver Needle, is wrapped in paper and yellowed, while Meng Ding Yellow Bud is spread on an iron plate and roasted to yellow colour. Huo Shan Yellow Bud is a lightly processed version of yellow tea, similar in quality and taste to green tea; after its development and restoration in 1971, the production method and quality of Huo Shan Yellow Bud became closer to that of green tea.

Huo Shan Yellow Bud is shaped like a bird's tongue and the leaf surface is full of hairs, smooth and yellowish. In the past this was attributed to processing techniques, but current research shows that this is related to the variety. The Dahua Ping Golden Chicken variety, which is suitable for Yellow Bud (Huang Ya) Tea, has light green leaves, while first-grade yellow bud tea has a one-bud, one-leaf, oily appearance. The colour is golden, so the resulting tea is naturally yellow-green.

***** Yellow tea is not well known outside of China, and in fact is almost unknown in the long history of tea in China. Yellow tea includes some of the most famous consecrated teas since the First Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD). As the name suggests, yellow tea is yellow in both the tea leaves and the extract. This colour is obtained by adding a process called 'sealed agonising yellow' to the green tea production process, which is otherwise almost identical to green tea. The length of the yellowing process can vary from 30 minutes to six days, and can range from yellow tea that is indistinguishable from green tea to golden yellow tea. The yellowing process is a complex and subtle change that mellows the herbaceous bitterness of green tea and enhances its aroma.