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Tea Adventures

This village hails over 33 generations of the surname Dai, and…

Tea Adventures

This village hails over 33 generations of the surname Dai, and the tea has been here for over 1000 years. Some of the ancient bushes may well be 1000 years old, according to Mr. Dai, his great grandfather told him that when he was a kid, he asked his great grandfather who pointed out all the 600 year olds around the mountain. The wild bushes are in fact, indigenous and one of the original Guanmu/bush type Camellia sinensis on earth.
One thing for sure: Mr. Dai’s family invented the Yellow tea, they drink lots of it, and they seem to all live a long time. The tea bushes outlive them, but still, one can surmise longevity a function of Yellow tea?
Regardless, this is still one of the most remote, hidden, inaccessible, and therefore, pristine mountains in China I have ever been to.

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Piling is one of the crucial steps for making Yellow tea unlike…

Tea Adventures

Piling is one of the crucial steps for making Yellow tea unlike any other. After the high heat drying, the leaves are now very dry. The stems are still moist. Piling the leaves together allows the water in the wet stems to travel to the dry leaves- a process of drawing out the moisture in an ingenious way. After a day of piling, medium heat rotation is again applied. Then, piling with a fabric to keep out any additional air from influencing the final drying process. After that, one more round of high heat drying one week later ensures that the Yellow tea is the dryest tea of all time, thus the least perishable of all green teas!
This whole process was invented by this village. Trade secrets few green tea makers know or bother with. All this work to make a few renminbi, says the high roller Dragonwell merchants! Truly, this wonderful gem of Yellow tea is completely unknown and there is no market for, and skilled artisans like Mr. Dai, the last one standing, continues to make this tea out of sheer determination to preserve this vestige of pride from his village.

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About 100 rotations of repeating between heating the leaves over…

Tea Adventures

About 100 rotations of repeating between heating the leaves over charcoal heat, removing after 30 seconds to re-toss the leaves so bottom leaves don’t burn, shuffling the leaves, place back over the heat, repeat….. This is a long laborious process such as I have never seen for making any tea.

I asked the crucial question: when does one take a bathroom break during this continuous process?
They all laughed. Bathroom break? They can’t stop long enough for a sip of water!

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Making Yellow tea is more work than I have ever seen any green…

Tea Adventures

Making Yellow tea is more work than I have ever seen any green teas made! The big wok is fired with wood fire to 300 C. About 100g of raw leaves are tossed with a heavy twig broom.

After about15-20 minutes of Shaqing ‘killing the green’, the wok spits and sizzles, the high temperature and large surface wok allows the larger leaves to elicit both color and aroma without turning red. The next step is crucial: the rolling when the leaves are still hot squeezes out the astringency. Other green tea making does not have this step. No wonder Yellow tea never gets bitter no matter how oversteeped in hot water or how many times one steeps!

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