Yellow Pill: Next Chapter Sampler

We have spent some of four years learning what exactly yellow tea is (and is not). For the next five Springs and Summers, we are going to take our understanding to a whole new level. We have rented a house on Huoshan's Golden Chicken Mountain, and plan to conduct yellow tea experiments and promotion alongside international volunteers. In this sampler, you can try two teas from this mountain, the core of the Huoshan Yellow Bud production area. Both are made from virtually an identical mid-Spring pick of the same heirloom cultivar on Golden Chicken Mountain from the same producer. Both teas underwent kill-green, straightening, and oven baking in the same series of machines at the same factory. The one and only difference is that one sample underwent smoothering, and the other tea did not. Having controlled for all other factors, you can taste exactly what the smoothering process does. In our past three yellow tea samplers, we have always offered a mix of genuinely yellowed tea and greener, more borderline offerings. All samples were from roughly the same area: either Huoshan or Yueyang, but never the exact same village or even township in the same year, let alone the same season. That means, when trying to taste the difference between thoroughly yellowed Huangdacha and lightly smoothered buds, a lot of what one tasted was a difference in material and aging. This may be your best opportunity to learn for yourself exactly what changes when yellow tea smoothering is undertaken. Huoshan Green Bud （20 grams） This is an ideally typical green tea for this sampler. With tasting notes like cabbage, kale, toasted soy, and pine nuts, this tea has come out as a classic example of what a good oven-roasted, fully mechanized green tea in China now tastes like. The pine needle shape is neither unusually rough nor especially consistent; whatever extra yellowness is perceptible in the dry leaf and wet dreg color is balanced by the sharply fresh aroma, minor astrigency, and light green soup color. Behold: a solid and normal Chinese green tea. Huoshan Yellow Bud (20 grams) More earthy, sweet, corn-like, and occasionally fruity, the effect of the smothering is immediately obvious. This sample is not as fruity or chocolately as later pick Huangdacha, this is what mid-Spring green tea tastes like if it is allowed to yellow. The greenest, most grassy notes have faded, and a more mellow, sweeter drink has developed. There is also a thickness and savory dimension in this tea that was not present in the green bud. This is a solid, representative sample of what yellow tea tastes like today in China.