Tasting 3 (Rare): The Elusive & Endangered Yellow Teas

This is a tasting of three extremely rare yellow teas. Two of the teas are only released for this tasting session, and will only be available in this format due to the extremely limited quantities that we were fortunate to receive. Tasting the yellow teas side-by-side will deepen your understanding appreciation for this endangered craft.

TEAS
Mengding Yellow Tips, Yellow Purple Shoots, Pingyang Yellow Broth

DATES
May 28, Saturday  10 - 11:30am
June 10, Friday  10 - 11:30am
June 11, Saturday  10 - 11:30am

TICKETS
$45 per person

BUY TICKET

Yellow teas have been prized as Tribute Teas and favored by emperors for over one thousand years. Crafting yellow tea requires an intense amount of focused and meticulous work, which, although once highly valued, has meant that the number of dedicated artisans who make Yellow tea has gradually dwindled. As a result, Yellow tea has many imposters; nowadays you will even find some green teas passed off as Yellow teas. And so today, this prized, in-between category of tea is extremely rare, to the point of being considered endangered. 

Mengding Yellow Tips is from high up in the esteemed Mengding Mountain of the Sichuan Province. This traditionally crafted yellow tea went through 4 rounds of the  焖黄, or “smothering” process, unique to Yellow teas, which in this case took over 100 hours, spread over 5 days. 

Yellow Purple Shoots is an extremely rare and experimental tea, in that it applies traditional methods of craftsmanship – in this case, the already nearly extinct practice of making Yellow tea — to a varietal of tea not normally handled this way: here, the green tea, Wild Purple Shoots. Only 1500 grams were crafted for the year and it lends us an incredible opportunity to taste for method, as it is applied to an unusual varietal. 

Pingyang Yellow Broth is an unusually viscous yellow tea from Pingyang, Zhejiang, with history dating back 300 years ago to the Qing Dynasty, when the Imperial family used it to prepare it as a traditional milk tea. 

We are only able to share Yellow Purple Shoots and Pingyang Yellow Broth in this tasting format due to the extremely limited amount we have received. Alongside Mengding Yellow Tips, tasting through these yellow teas side-by-side deepens our understanding and appreciation for this endangered craft – something we are keen to do, as a means of further encouraging its revitalization.