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.
The tea is great. It has a really intense nutty flavor and somewhat soft texture. It handles grandpa brewing with boiling water and general inattentiveness well. I wanted to try Longjing this year, and started with the heirloom variety. This one is actually cheaper than some offerings, not coming from the direct Lion's Peak/Shifeng area. However, I honestly think the Guyu Longjing offering is a much better value, especially in any bulk. The difference in quality is not comparable to the 4x difference in price. Still worth it if you love green tea or get very excited for the qingming tea season.
I like it. I can drink it every now and then but this kind of puerh usually gives me an uncomfortable sensation on the tongue if I drink it often. Simple, nothing fancy, on par with the standard puerh from the region for me.
