Best Yellow Teas

The term Yellow Tea, or Huang Cha, has two meanings in China.  It can refer to a tea produced using a specific method – slight, late-stage oxidation – or it can refer to a carefully selected tea that a province used to send as a tribute to the Emperor – yellow was the Emperor's color. Here, we refer to Yellow Tea as a style of processing. After the leaves are picked, they are processed like a white tea but heated immediately before being allowed to sit in a heap for some time, causing them to oxidize. This produces a drier, slightly smoky flavor that is less grassy than a green tea.