The Secrets of Mengding Huangya (Yellow Buds)-The Rare Chinese Yellow Tea

In a poem Qin and Tea from Baijuyi, a famous poet in Tang Dynasty wrote: with respect to Qin music, the most famous one is Lushui, as for tea, Mengshan is an old friend. Mengding Huangya(Yellow Bud) is from Mengshan(also called Mengding Mountain) of Mingshan County, Sichuan province. Since Tang Dynasty it has been widely known that Mengding tea was as precious as water from Yangzi River. The real Mengding tea has always been precious because Mengding Mountain is usually surrounded by mist and clouds throughout the year. Mengding Mountain is located in the territory of Ya'an City, Sichuan Province, southwest of Sichuan basin. High in the north and low in the south, it is about 10 km long and 4 km wide. Shaped like lotus, Mengding Mountain has five peaks, and Shangqingfeng is the top one with 1456 meters above sea level. Most tea plantations lie about 1200 meters above sea level. Each year around spring equinox when peach trees are in full blossom it is the time for picking tea leaves. 

When it comes to Mengding tea, we’d better mention Mengding Huangya, which is yellow tea. The biggest difference between yellow tea and green tea lies in the piling process. After fixation, it is wrapped with a specialized thick paper, and then undergoes the stack-cover process. As for Mengding Huangya the processing techniques will be comparatively complicated. It can be fully manual and semi-automatic. 

Mengding Huangya is made through the process of fixation, initial wrapping, second-time frying, second-time wrapping, third-time frying, stacking, fourth-time frying, and baking.

The difference of the raw material of fully manual Huangya and semi-automatically-made Huangya is as follows:

As for fully manual Huangya, only single robust bud is plucked as raw material, while for semi-automatically-made Huangya, single bud is picked out among all the plucked fresh leaves.  

Fully manual Huangya need to be fermented three times after manual fixation. Each time tea of about six to seven Liang is wrapped up with bamboo-made coarse paper and fermented for 24 hours at the temperature of around 40 degrees Celsius. The paper should be tasteless and absorptive. During this period, tea makers need to open the bag to check the color and moisture and stir to enable it to heat evenly from time to time. After 24 hours, the tea needs to be scattered, heated, and then wrapped up again with coarse paper to ferment for another 24 hours. For the third 24 hours, the tea needs to be fermented as a whole. After the first fermentation the tea is fresh and fragrant, and for the second time it becomes fragrant and sweet. During this process the experience of tea makers plays a big role.

With respect to semi-automatically-made Huangya, after fixation with machine the three-time wrapping and piling process are finished by hand. It takes 3 to 4 days.   

The techniques of Mengding Huangya making today derive from the tribute tea to the emperor in Qing Dynasty. It was recorded in Minshan County Annals that in a temple some monks were making tribute tea. Firstly they picked out the finest tender bud, and then baked it in a new pot with fire. But the fire was too fierce, and it easily got burned. Therefore they wrapped it up in paper, and then put the package in a hot pot for some time until the tea was half-withered. And later on they began to roll and dry it. After all these procedures some of the tea buds turned dry and yellowish or dark black, and could not become tributes. However, the tea-makers might think it was a pity to throw away those a bit yellow ones which could not become tributes, and hence gradually they were developed into Mengding Huangya nowadays. 

The photos of dried tealeaves, liquor and brewed tealeaves of the semi-automatically-made Mengding Huangya:

Will Traditional Yellow Tea Revive And Gain Popularity?

Yellow Tea In History 

Yellow tea is a variety of tea only produced in China. With a very long history, it was found to be recorded in the books as early as in the Tang Dynasty(618-907). During that time, the three most famous yellow bud tea: Huoshan Huangya, Mengding Huangya and Junshan Yinzhen have all become famous. The techniques and methods for making yellow tea matured in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and yellow tea came into the prime time during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). While when it came into the modern time, with black tea and oolong tea being more and more popular, yellow tea was gradually disappearing from our eyes due to its highly complicated production skills and techniques.

Traditional Type Huoshan Huangya (Huoshan Yellow Bud Tea) Made By Heng Yongzhi

Yellow Tea Today

Now when we try to look for some yellow tea, it turned out to be a challenging task. Mr Zhou (周长瑞先生， Zhou Changrui) is a tea enthusiastic who has been dedicated in yellow tea promotion for years in Beijing. He said for the three most famous yellow bud teas, there is now only Junshan Yinzhen commercially produced but it is now as expensive as gold as it its production was monopolized by one business with very limited quantity each year. He estimated the annual output of quality traditional Mengding Huangya is no more than 300KG, the less for Huoshan Huangya. Now, it is common that people even in tea business for many years may have never seen traditional Huoshan Huangya or Mengding Huangya in China.

Yellow Tea is A Transitional Tea

Like Oolong tea, in fact, yellow tea is also a kind of transitional tea. Unlike oolong between black and green tea, yellow tea is a kind of tea between green and dark tea. There are fermentation processes in both black tea and dark tea production. The fermentation in black tea production is taken place by the oxidation of the endogenous enzyme existing in the tealeaves while the fermentation in yellow tea and dark tea are different. They both are the processes of Hydrothermal oxidation and microbial fermentation. In yellow tea production, it may be called smothering process (Men-huang, 悶黄) or wrapping process (Bao-huang, 包黄). In dark tea production, it is called as Wo-dui. The main difference is that the fermentation in the latter is much more intensive than the former.

As a kind of transitional tea, Oolong tea can be made much like green tea such as modern Tieguanyin and it can also be much like black tea such as some kinds of Wuyi Rock tea. It is also the same for yellow tea. Although the Huoshan Huangya in the market is now mostly made in the green tea style, there is still some made adopting the smothering method(Men-huang, 悶黄), a slow oxidation process. The only difference between it and the traditional Huoshan Huangya is that it has a much shorter smothering process than the traditional one. The traditional one usually has a smothering process up to seven days while the modern Huoshan Huangya may have a less than 1 day smothering process. Some people don't see such modern Huoshan Huangya as yellow tea but we and most of the local tea producers think they should be. We think any tea when adopting smothering process in production to make it taste mellower can belong to yellow tea.

A Tea Review of Traditional Huoshan Huangya
(The Right is Mr Heng)

Why there is no traditional Huoshan Huangya in the market.

We visited Mr Heng (衡永志先生，Heng Yongzhi) during the early July in Huoshan county. He is now awarded as "the Inheritor of Intangible Culture of Traditional Huoshan Huangya Production Skills and Techniques" by Anhui Provincial Government. He said the skills and techniques to make traditional Huoshan Huangya hasn't been lost as some people thought. It is, to a large extent, attributed to his efforts for more than 20 years. To save the ancient skills and techniques of making traditional Huoshan Huangya, he visited almost all of the old tea farmers and masters and learnt from them after he graduated from the Anhui Agricultural College in 1979. With his efforts, the skills and techniques were preserved and even improved. The traditional type Huoshan Huangya he made surprised Chinese famous tea professors and experts and was highly praised by them. While the situation of traditional Huoshan Huangya is still grim "Now there are no more than three people who can make such traditional Huoshan Huangya and we only make no more than 150KG each year. It is only booked in advance by the acquaintances or friends." Mr Heng told us. The production of traditional Huoshan Huangya requires intensive labor and much time compared to green version, leading to a very high cost. Not sure about the market, Mr Heng said they would not make more. "For such expensive tea while having a look like green tea stored for many years, we would take a high risk if we make more" Mr Heng said.

How to distinguish yellow tea from green tea stored for years

Yes, just as Mr Heng said, there are two main reasons that makes the traditional Huoshan Huangya can't be commercially produced now. One is the production cost and the other is the look of the tea.  Traditional Huoshan Huangya looks much like green tea stored for many years. For people unfamiliar with it is reluctant to try it. Mr Heng told us in fact, it is simple to distinguish it. You can put the teas into a Gaiwan warmed with boiled water, close the lid and shake the gaiwan for one minute, then you take the lid off and smell it. There would be a nice aroma of corn, chestnuts combined with glutinous rice if it is traditional Huoshan Huangya.

What health benefits does Yellow Tea has

Yellow tea belongs to fermented tea. As a great deal of Digestive enzyme occured during its smothering process (Men-huang, 悶黄), a slow oxidation process, yellow tea is much beneficial for the spleen and stomach. It is good at correcting indigestion,stimulating appetite and helping losing weight.

The natural substance which is effective in anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory is remained up to 85% in yellow tea after processing, making it having its own distinctive health benefits. Recent scientific studies found yellow tea rich in tea polyphenols, polysaccharide, vitamins and amino acids has special effect on preventing and curing esophageal cancer.

The Final Question:

Although green tea has a number of health benefits, some people can't consume it as it may cause stomach upset. It is because of its irritancy while yellow tea improved on it. For the people who wish to obtain the health benefits and at the same time avoid the irritancy of green tea, yellow tea is no doubt the first choice. Then will traditional yellow tea revive and gain popularity?

It is hard to say. Currently, we think there are at least two main obstacles. One is that the huge production cost of yellow tea compared to that of green tea. The other is that people almost never heard about it, not to mention knowing about it even in China.

Pls note: 

The information in the article, to a large extent, comes from two persons: Mr Zhou, a tea enthusiastic who has been dedicated in yellow tea promotion for up to six years in Bejing and he sometimes holds yellow tea tasting parties with the tea connoisseurs, tea lovers and tea businessmen in Beijing and Mr Heng, he is a Huoshan Huangya tea master in Huoshan county awarded as "the Inheritor of Intangible Culture of traditional Huoshan Huangya production skills and techniques" by Anhui provincial government. They two gave us much help when we made the investigation into the situation of yellow tea.

Thanks for Mr Zhou and Mr Heng' help.

We don't gurantee here the 100% correctness of the above information as we failed to find authorative materials to prove part of the above information. 

For any use of it, pls indicate the source here!