Though I’m just reviewing it now, this was the first 2024 harvest tea I drank this spring. It was also my first Meng Ding Huang Ya, though I’ve had good experiences with Huo Shan Huang Ya from Teavivre and Yunnan Craft. It was relatively affordable for a pre-Qingming tea, so into my cart it went. I steeped 4 g of leaf in 120 ml of 175F water for 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 90, 120, 160, 190, and 240 seconds, plus some longer steeps. I also grandpa steeped 3 g in around 250 ml of 175F water, starting at 3 minutes.
The dry aroma is of hazelnuts, toasted corn, green beans, and butter. It suggests that the tea was roasted recently. The first steep is light and silky, with notes of corn, green beans, cucumber, squash, butter, and faint florals. Steep two has stronger notes of beans, corn, hazelnuts, and apple, with some melon in the aftertaste. Its extra strength may be due to three little buds that escaped through my teapot’s filter holes and floated in the cup for about twenty minutes without me noticing! The third and fourth steeps have more spring flowers, plus hazelnut, beans, kale, squash, and grass. I get apple and something herbaceous in the aftertaste. The next few steeps are nutty, buttery, and green, with lots of beans, grass, and kale but not too much bitterness.
Grandpa steeping this tea was a bitter mistake: hazelnuts, corn, kale, beans, and grass, with only hints of the more delicate flavours I get when I gongfu these buds. It tastes a lot like a green tea.
This is a robust yellow tea that can taste a lot like a green. In a teapot, it lacks bitterness and has good longevity. I consider it good value for the price and a nice way to start my spring 2024 tea lineup.
Flavors: Apple, Butter, Cucumber, Floral, Grass, Green, Green Beans, Hazelnut, Herbaceous, Kale, Melon, Nutty, Roasted, Squash, Sweet Corn
