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Yellow tea · Hunan
Junshan Yinzhen
jūnshān yínzhēn · 君山银针
The emperor of yellow teas — all-bud needles from a single small island in Dongting Lake, gently smothered to mellow the green edge. Famous for standing upright in the glass, then sinking like a slow forest of needles.
- Region
- Junshan island, Dongting Lake, Yueyang, Hunan
- Harvest
- Early spring — buds only, a short March window
- Oxidation
- Lightly "sealed-yellowed" (15–25%)
- Cultivar
- Local Junshan bushes
In the cup
Sweet corn and chestnut over a soft, mellow body — rounder and less grassy than a green, with a clean lingering finish.
What it gives
A gentle, low-astringency cup — the sealing step softens the leaf, making it kind on the stomach while keeping the buds' delicacy.
Junshan Yinzhen — Junshan silver needle — is the most celebrated of the yellow teas, a class so small and so painstaking that few drinkers ever meet it. It comes from a single small island, Junshan, in the wide waters of Dongting Lake in Hunan, and is made from plump spring buds alone, picked in a brief window in March.
What sets yellow tea apart is one extra step. After the leaf is fixed like a green, it is wrapped warm and damp and left to seal-yellow — mēnhuáng — a slow, gentle non-enzymatic mellowing that takes the grassy edge off and rounds the cup toward sweet corn and chestnut. It is patient work, and it is why true yellow tea is rare.
In the cup
Brew it cool, around 80–85 °C, ideally in a tall glass. The needles famously stand on end, rise toward the surface, then sink in slow succession — a quiet performance the Chinese prize as much as the flavour. The liquor is pale gold, soft and mellow, sweeter and less sharp than any green.
How to brew
Junshan Yinzhen
Water
80–85 °C
Leaf
5 g per 100 ml
Steep
10–20 s gongfu, or long in glass
Vessel
Tall glass — to watch the needles dance
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