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Yellow tea · Sichuan
Emei Huang Ya
峨眉黄芽
A rare yellow bud tea from sacred Mount Emei — single buds gently "sealed-yellowed" so the green softens into a mellow, honeyed cup with no bitterness and a quiet Zen lineage.
- Region
- Mount Emei, Sichuan — 800–1500 m
- Harvest
- Earliest spring — single buds only
- Oxidation
- Lightly oxidised, with the "sealed yellowing" step
- Cultivar
- High-mountain Emei bushes
In the cup
Soft chestnut and honey, with a sweet mellowness and no bitterness — gentler and rounder than a green of the same leaf.
What it gives
A calm, gentle lift — the smoothing yellowing step makes it kind to the stomach and easy to drink.
Emei Huang Ya is a yellow tea — China’s rarest class — from high on Mount Emei in Sichuan, the same sacred mountain that gives us Zhu Ye Qing. Where the green is fixed and dried to stay fresh, the yellow takes an extra, patient step.
After the buds are fixed, they are wrapped and held warm in the “sealed yellowing” (mèn huáng), a slow, gentle non-enzymatic mellowing that turns the leaf and liquor a soft yellow and rounds off any green edge. It is fiddly, time-consuming work, which is part of why true yellow tea is so scarce.
In the cup
Brew around 80–85 °C and expect a cup that is softer and sweeter than a green made from the same buds. Chestnut and honey lead, with a mellow body and none of the brisk bitterness of an unyellowed leaf. It gives several gentle steeps and rewards an unhurried drinker.
How to brew
Emei Huang Ya
Water
80–85 °C
Leaf
5 g per 100 ml
Steep
1–2 min, several steeps
Vessel
Glass or gaiwan
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