Tea: Yellow Kukicha(霍山棒棒茶) Type: Yellow Tea, Huangdacha Processing Harvest: July 2024 Region: Shangtutushi Town, Huoshan City, Anhui. Producer: Jiahong Factory Tasting Notes: Sunflower Seeds, Pine Nuts, Toasted Sesame.
This is, without exaggeration, the best thing to ever happen to stem tea. Processed as green tea, stems can sometimes give off rough astringency; as a red tea, they can come out weak, albeit sweet. Yet, as a yellow tea, stems offer up a uniquely rich, nutty, sweet, and roasty taste. The closest analog in the tea world is Japan's Hoji-kukicha, but the balance between sweetness and roastiness is unrivaled. There are no sour or sharp notes lurking below the surface.
The Jiahong "factory" is really just a father-son duo that has converted their two story village home and backyard into a mini reprocessing plant for the twigs. Hu Jiahong heard about the market for heavily roasted, yellowed twig tea in the early 2000's. He learned how to make it after some experimentation, and began visiting Shandong and Shanxi in 2008. His son now permanently lives in Shanxi's Hongtong County, and has been storing and shipping out tea after an industrial accident left him disabled.
In China, stem tea like this is consumed in a relatively limited geographic area, mainly Shandong and Southern Shanxi. It is an affordable, hardy tea that is perfectly suited for the conventional mug-brewing of these areas. This a dessert tea if there ever was one, and a treat that every tea lover should try at least once.
I CHEATED!!! Sorry, ORT. And after doing a comparison from 3 different boutique tea companies of this first flush 2026 King Peony from similar regions, this one is hands down my favorite! Thank you One River Tea for all your blood, sweat, and tears that go along with finding such a superior product. I could talk about the unrivaled sweetness or the melon and creamy green bean notes, but it’s already been said very well in all the other reviews. Bottom line, not only is this my favorite tea out of the ones I compared it against, but it’s my favorite tea out of my entire green collection this year. Enjoy!
I received a free sample with my order and was blown away by the color and taste - this is special and needs very little tea to make a really expressive session - thank you for opening my eyes wide!
A great opportunity to try single origin moacha from four famous regions. The moacha was carefully packaged inside vacuum sealed bags, inside of a beautiful wooden box, and thus got into my gaiwan without any breakage. The Lao Ban Zhang is stunning, I am floored by the chaqi, the wonderful floral minerality, the whole Menghai package, wow. A rare treat.
