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Yellow tea · Sichuan
Mengding Huangya
méngdǐng huángyá · 蒙顶黄芽
“Yellow buds of Mengding” — a yellow tea from the misty slopes of Mount Meng in Sichuan, one of China's oldest tea mountains. Tender buds, sealed warm to a soft golden mellowness.
- Region
- Mount Meng, Ya'an, Sichuan — 800–1,450 m
- Harvest
- Early spring — tender single buds
- Oxidation
- Lightly sealed-yellowed (5–15%)
- Cultivar
- Local Mengshan bushes
In the cup
Sweet chestnut and toasted grain over a smooth, mellow body — gently sweet, with none of the green's edge.
What it gives
A soothing, low-astringency cup — the sealing step makes it mellow and easy, while the high-mountain buds keep it fresh and clean.
Mengding Huangya — the yellow buds of Mengding — comes from Mount Meng above Ya’an in Sichuan, a mountain woven through the earliest tea history of China; legend names it the place tea was first cultivated. The cloud and damp of the slopes slow the leaf and concentrate its sweetness, and the spring pluck is single tender buds.
Like all true yellow teas it owes its character to sealing-yellow, mēnhuáng. After fixing, the warm leaf is wrapped and rested in stages so that a slow, non-enzymatic mellowing rounds off the grassy notes a green would keep. The result is a soft golden cup that tastes of chestnut and toasted grain rather than fresh field.
In the cup
Brew it around 85 °C in glass or a gaiwan and give the buds time to open. The liquor is pale yellow-gold, the body smooth and sweet, the finish long and clean. It is a quiet, contemplative tea — closer in spirit to a fine bud green than to anything bolder.
How to brew
Mengding Huangya
Water
85 °C
Leaf
5 g per 100 ml
Steep
10–20 s gongfu, or long in glass
Vessel
Glass or gaiwan
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