Jun Shan Yin Zhen, The Silver Needles of Mt. Jun,
Dong Ting Lake divides the provinces of Hubei and Hunan in South-Central China. It is one of China’s 5 great lakes and famous to Chinese culture for 2 main reasons. The first reason is that Dong Ting Lake was where Dragon Boat racing originated. More importantly (in relation to tea), there is an island known as ‘Jun Shan’ in the Northern area of this lake. Jun Shan is tiny island at not even 1km2, and the tea produced there grows on only 0.25km2 (or 25 hectares) of its land. The tea grows in sandy lake soils at only 20m above sea level and has never seen fertilizers or pesticides as there is no use for them. The tea grows at its own pace among the natural forest ecosystem which covers nearly 75% of the island. ‘Jun Shan Yin Zhen’ has been in production since the 1700s or so, originally cultivated by the Buddhist monks of the islands temple. The tea varietal which creates Jun Shan Yin Zhen is called Jun Shan Qun Ti Zhong which has become localized to the island and has fairly large buds when comparing it to other tea varietals.
Yin Zhen is a picking criteria. Just as spring starts to arrive the tea bush will start to produce its new flush of leaves. The unopened bud which contains these leaves is called the Yin Zhen or ‘Silver Needle’. In the case of a ‘Yin Zhen’ tea, this is all that is picked, just these buds. If the Yin Zhen was not picked in time, it will eventually open up into a leaf and reveal the next baby silver needle. As the bush grows and the next silver needle opens you will have a total of 2 leaves and 1 bud. Picking at this level is called ‘Mu Dan’ and after this is Gong Mei and Shou Mei, but we don’t need to get into that now. Depending on the variety of the tea bush, the young leaves will be covered by a soft white, perhaps ‘silver’ ‘fur’ or ‘pekoe’. An immaculate bud picked from a tea bush with a high amount of furs would indeed appear to a shimmering silver.
There are several lists of famous Chinese tea. These lists generally manifest in the form of a top 10 and Jun Shan Yin Zhen is almost always included. It is the only ‘yellow tea’ which appears. Yellow tea can be thought of as an intermediary tea between white and green, although that might be over simplifying. In the processing of a yellow tea, there is a step which involves covering the tea leaves with a hot wet blanket to ‘sweat’ the leaves underneath. This process is known in Chinese as Mèn huáng (闷黄), perhaps in English ‘smothering’ would be appropriate. The smothering process gives a dull yellow color to the otherwise white or green leaves.
There are several noteworthy yellow teas in China such as Meng Ding Huang Ya from Sichuan, Huo Shan Huang Ya and Huang Da Cha from Anhui, Wen Zhou Huang Tang from Zhejiang, Da Ye Qing from Guangdong, Yuan An Lu Yuan from Hubei, and finally Wei Shan Mao Jian, Bei Gang Mao Jian, and Jun Shan Yin Zhen from Hunan. In the picking of these teas, each tea has a different criteria: some are the leaf, some are the buds. The tea cultivars in each region are different, and ultimately processing of these teas is different too. They all will undergo the smothering process as is necessary for yellow tea, but the producer will do so at a different stage as is dictated by local tradition.
In the standard processing of Chinese green teas the leaves are picked from the bush, perhaps slightly withered, parched/fried in a wok to kill the enzymes responsible for oxidation, rolled/shaped, and either mostly dried and rested before drying completely or just dried completely after rolling. In the processing of yellow tea, the smothering step will be carried out after either the initial parching, the rolling, or the preliminary drying. That is the choice of the manufacturer. In the processing of Jun Shan Yin Zhen this process is carried out twice and known as 二烘二闷 (twice baked, twice smothered). Jun Shan Yin Zhen is classically picked, parched, dried, smothered, dried further, smothered, and finished with a final drying.
There are different ‘grades’ of the finished tea, that’s not to say that the difference is in higher skill or neglect during the processing though. There are certain permissible amounts of differently sized buds or damaged pieces to be allowed in certain grades. For a tea to be at the highest possible grade you should expect (and pay dearly for) an extreme level of consistency in both leaf size and flawless appearance. That’s not to say that the broken leaf will taste inferior though. It is the high paying consumers every right to buy a product they consider ‘perfect’ and to ‘buy out imperfections’ (however insignificant they may seem to others) with an additional cost. Giving tea as a gift is a very respectable in East Asia, and what could be better than receiving ‘authentic’ Jun Shan island tea? This is a question I’ll answer in a few moments.
To drink what was authentic Jun Shan Yin Zhen was to truly to be drinking one of the most prestigious teas in the world.
Unfortunately for us in the Western world, news travels slowly, and misinformation is everywhere. If you had noticed, I said ‘authentic’ and I switched to past tense, that may concern you, please read on. Authentic Jun Shan Yin Zhen was only made on the island of Jun Shan. Patents on ‘cultural names’ and ‘styles of tea’ are not new and up until 2016 there was only 1 company legally entitled to produce authentic ‘Jun Shan Yin Zhen’ — the ‘Hunan Tea Company’. When the Hunan Tea Company’s patent expired it was deemed ineligible for renewal, without a patent protecting their product they decided to quit production of tea on the island. This has enabled production of tea called ‘Jun Shan Yin Zhen’ by other producers, but as the islands bushes can only produce 500KG of tea per year, anything produced on the island would still be out of reach for the majority of the world. Before the Hunan Tea Company stopped production, their world renowned Jun Shan Yin Zhen would fetch prices at least 3~4 times more than the sales price of this one I am selling.
These days the islands tea production is confusing. The quality of tea is no where near what it used to be (read: it’s very bad), and the new producers are not following the processing of what made Jun Shan Yin Zhen different from its competition — sometimes it’s not even considered yellow tea. But alas, due to the fame created by those before them the tea costs the same price, and sometimes even more. With the Hunan Tea Company being gone from the island the only ‘authentic’ Jun Shan Yin Zhen that exists anymore would be made by producers who follow in their foot steps.
There are deals to be had and surely other great teas to drink in the vast market of replicas and forgeries that Jun Shan Yin Zhen has inspired. These teas are produced in the confusingly named ‘Junshan district’ of Yueyang city just north of Jun Shan island. Compared to what the Hunan Tea Co. was doing on the island, the tea varietal would almost certainly be different, the age of the tea bushes would be different, and perhaps the skill level involved in the processing to change this from a white to yellow tea would be different too. As there is more land available, the teas made Yueyang can be sold for a much lower price; and if they stay true to the authentic production method the teas should be very enjoyable.
There’s literally a billion people in China who would love to drink this tea, a billion people who could never afford to drink this tea, and a billion people who would have no idea whether the Jun Shan Yin Zhen they tried was ‘authentic’ or not. Ironically I am in the same boat. Having not been to Jun Shan myself or in contact with the manufacturer directly, I place a lot of trust in my source of this tea. Seeing as he has taught me all of which I have laid out for your eyes here, I do trust him, and pay dearly for his tea.
There was a question I asked earlier on: What could be better than receiving ‘authentic’ Jun Shan island tea? I guess I’d say one produced in the authentic style, one that carries its signature taste and aroma, and one which represents substance over style. This tea is all 3 of those things.
Jun Shan Yin Zhen has a subtle flavor that I might describe as custardy and somewhat similar to honeydew melon, brown sugar, and beansprouts. There is a traditional way to brew this tea which is something like a ritual. If someone was not willing to entertain themselves with the fragrance of the tea or watch the leaves perform their ‘dance’ while brewing, it wouldn’t be a good choice of tea for them. This is not a tea that one should just pound back for caffeine (although there’s bound to be plenty of it). That being said, to drink this tea at a time which one could focus on and savor the experience, it would be among the most beautiful teas that I could provide.
A video of the traditional way to enjoy Jun Shan Yin Zhen could be found here
Perhaps I’ll make my own video one day…