Golden Tea: 2015 Huang Guanyin - Yellow Goddess of Mercy

I'm seriously backlogged on getting teas up on the site, but that means that things are busy and that is a good thing. I've been prepping for the upcoming Assessing Assam Tasting, which will be this Saturday at 1pm for anyone that wants to join. It's a free tasting during which we will compare six different orthodox Assams from the 2015 second flush harvest. Should be fun!

This is a look at Huang Guanyin (Yellow Goddess of Mercy) from the 2015 harvest. Huang Guanyin is a relatively new hybrid cultivar that comes from a cross between Tie Guanyin (Iron Goddess of Mercy) and Huang Jingui (Yellow Gold). The cultivar was developed by the Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences - Tea Research Institute in the late 1980s and adopted in the Wuyishan area of Fujian Province in the 1990s. The cultivar name is ART.NO.W003A (or WYA38): Huang guan yin. Picked only in April, this oolong is roasted and rolled unlike the two varietals that it comes from - Tie Guanyin and Huang Jingui are usually ball-rolled, with Tie Guanyin being either medium to heavy roasted (traditional style) or light roasted (more modern style) while Huang Jingui is usually lightly roasted (for an excellent version I often buy the Yellow Gold from Teance).

This is perhaps one of the best Wuyi oolongs to get people excited about these amazingly complex teas. Medium roasted, with a nice sweetness and floral orchid notes, this tea is hard to go wrong with. The one exception is if you try and brew it in a pot - I really don't think Wuyi teas respond well to pot brewing, and need/must be brewed in a gaiwan with lots of leaves and quick steeps. I like 7grams in a 100ml gaiwan with ~20 second steeps. On this one, the charcoal roast notes dropped off after the first 3 steepings or so, but the honey and melon flavors persisted well into the 7th steep. Wuyi oolongs are not cheap, and if you do find a cheap one, it will probably be a disappointment. You pay for what you get, and in this case, paying for a quality Wuyi will make all the difference.