Pre Rain Mo Gan Yellow Buds

In Mandarin Chinese, this tea is called Ming Qing Mo Gan Huang Ya.

An amazing and rare yellow tea from Mo Gan mountain in Zhejiang province. It is composed of extremely small tips and leaf, which were the first crop of the year.

Yellow teas are processed in a similar way to green teas: picking, withering, firing…but there is an extra method, unique to yellow tea production, in which the tea is wrapped in paper and gently warmed (40-60 degrees), which softens the flavour of the tea and removes the vegetal flavour present in green tea.

I don’t know about that vegetal flavor thing, if I didn’t knew this was a yellow tea I would have said this is (one of ) the best green tea  I had. This tea is in my stash for almost a year, I only have about one brew left. I enjoy it so much that I didn’t want to ruin the experience by taking photos. When I did that,  the tea was not as good as in the rest of the sessions, as it didn’t have the required attention.  Now, I’m getting ready for the next yellow tea that I chosed for 2010-2011. I hope it’s as good as this one.

I usually brew this tea using a thin gaiwan .  If I wait for the water to cool, I don’t wait too much. I usually pour on the gaiwan‘s lid fist, and that’s enough cooling for this tea.