---
title: "Jìnyún huángchá"
url: https://thetea.app/article/jinyun-huangcha
lang: en
updated: 2026-10-01
source: THE TEA — encyclopedia of Chinese tea (https://thetea.app)
---
# Jìnyún huángchá (缙云黄茶)

*Jìnyún huángchá* (缙云黄茶) is a green tea made from a yellow-leaf cultivar of Jinyun County (缙云县), Lishui prefecture-level city, Zhejiang Province. The name translates as “the yellow tea of Jinyun”, but the tea does not belong to the yellow class: it has no sealed yellowing (闷黄), without which there is no yellow tea. “Yellow” here is the color of the spring leaf. The raw material comes from bushes of the cultivar “中黄2号”, bred from a natural mutant found in a garden in Shanghu village. Its spring shoots are bright yellow, “sunflower-colored”, and, according to the Tea Research Institute, they contain 6.8–8.3 % amino acids. Since 2014 the name has been protected by a geographical indication certification mark.

**1. Classification and Origin:**

* **Type:** Green tea (绿茶, *lǜchá*) made from a yellow-leaf cultivar. The technology is that of green tea: fixation, rolling, drying.
* **Name trap:** “黄茶” (*huángchá*) in the name is not the class but the color of the leaf. In the same way, “白茶” in the names of light-leaf cultivars often does not mean white tea: Anji Baicha is green.
* **Category:** Tea from light-leaf (黄化, *huánghuà*) cultivars; geographical indication certification mark (2014).
* **Origin:** China, Zhejiang Province (浙江, *Zhèjiāng*), Lishui prefecture-level city (丽水, *Lìshuǐ*), Jinyun County (缙云, *Jìnyún*). The county is given as the administrative affiliation of the mark holder; I have not checked the legal boundary of the zone.
* **Geographic coordinates:** Jinyun — about 28.7° N and 120.1° E.

**2. History and Cultural Significance:**

* **History:**
    * **Discovery.** In a garden in Shanghu village (上湖村), Jinyun County, a natural mutant of a local tea bush with yellow leaves was found. A reference work dates the find to 2006; the Tea Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences writes that the breeding took more than ten years. These timelines do not fit together well: from 2006 to the approval of the cultivar in 2015 is less than ten years.
    * **Breeding.** The cultivar was bred by the academy’s Tea Research Institute, the Jinyun County agriculture bureau and the Shanghu tea cooperative: selection of a single bush, propagation, comparative trials.
    * **From 2010** the county began mass planting of the cultivar.
    * **2012–2014.** The application for the geographical indication certification mark was filed on 19 March 2012; registration — 28 March 2014.
    * **2015.** The cultivar “中黄2号” was approved by the Zhejiang commission for non-major crops under number 浙(非)审茶2015001. According to the institute’s report (January 2016), the cultivar had already begun to be disseminated in Zhejiang, Sichuan, Guizhou and other places.
* **Name:** “Jinyun” (缙云) is the name of the county; *huángchá* (黄茶) is “yellow tea”, after the color of the leaf.
* **Cultural significance:** *Jìnyún huángchá* is an example of how a single find in a village garden became a cultivar, a mark and an industry of the county. The Lishui government writes about it as a separate yellow-leaf tea industry.

**3. Botanical Description and Raw Material:**

* **Variety:** **中黄2号** (*Zhōnghuáng 2*). A shrub, medium-leaf, mid-season, of medium size, with an upright crown.
* **Leaf color:** Spring shoots are bright yellow, “sunflower yellow” (葵花黄色). Summer shoots are green, autumn shoots yellow again. Mature leaves, the lower part and the interior of the crown are green.
* **Shoots:** Little pubescence; shoots form fairly densely and stay tender for a long time (发芽密度较大，持嫩性强).
* **Raw material:** Yellow spring shoots — it is they that give the tea its appearance.

**4. Terroir and Cultivation Features:**

* **Region:** The south of central Zhejiang, a mountainous county of Lishui prefecture-level city.
* **Climate:** Humid subtropical; precise data for the gardens not found in the sources consulted.
* **Altitude and soils:** No data found in the sources consulted.
* **Cultivar feature:** The yellow color of the leaf is a result of the mutation, not of growing conditions: in spring the shoots are yellow, in summer they turn green. That is why the main season for this tea is spring.

**5. Production Technology:**

A reference places *Jìnyún huángchá* under green tea technology: fixation, rolling, drying. A document with requirements for the technology was not found in the sources consulted, and neither were parameters.

Below is the general scheme for green tea, not a description of this particular tea:

1.  **Spreading of fresh leaf (摊放, *tānfàng*):** The leaf is spread in a thin layer so that it gives up part of its moisture.
2.  **Fixation (杀青, *shāqīng*):** Heating stops oxidation and preserves the color of the leaf.
3.  **Rolling (揉捻, *róuniǎn*).**
4.  **Drying (干燥, *gānzào*).**

This technology has no sealed yellowing (闷黄), which is what makes a tea yellow by class.

**6. Organoleptic Characteristics:**

The description below was given by the Tea Research Institute for tea from the 中黄2号 cultivar.

* **Dry leaf appearance:** Golden-yellow, with green showing through (金黄透绿).
* **Dry leaf aroma:** No descriptions found in the sources consulted.
* **Liquor aroma:** Clean (清香).
* **Taste:** Tender and fresh (滋味嫩鲜).
* **Liquor color:** Tender green and bright, with a golden glint (嫩绿明亮、透金黄).
* **Spent leaves (wet leaves):** Tender yellow, fresh and lively (叶底嫩黄鲜活).

**7. Chemical Composition:**

Tea Research Institute data for spring shoots of the 中黄2号 cultivar (one bud with two leaves, on a dry-weight basis):

| Indicator | Content |
| :--- | :--- |
| Amino acids | 6.8–8.3 % |
| Polyphenols | 12.4–15.9 % |
| Caffeine | 2.8–2.9 % |
| Extractive substances | 42.1–46.4 % |

These are data on the cultivar’s raw material, not standard indicators for the finished tea: a mark document with physicochemical requirements was not found in the sources consulted.

**8. Health Properties:**

There are no verified data on the effects of this particular tea.

**9. Brewing:**

Class practice for tender green tea.

* **Water temperature:** 75–80 °C — the cultivar is high in amino acids, and hot water dulls their freshness.
* **Tea amount:** 3 g per 150 ml.
* **Teaware:** A glass tumbler — the yellow-green leaf is visible in it.
* **Process:**
    1. Warm the glass.
    2. Put in the tea and pour the water down the side.
    3. First infusion — after 40–60 seconds.
    4. Drink, leaving part of the liquor.
    5. Top up with water.
    6. Two or three repeat infusions.

**10. Storage:**

Class practice. In airtight packaging, in a refrigerator at 0–5 °C, away from light, moisture and odors. Best drunk within a year.

**11. Price and Counterfeits:**

Price data not found in the sources consulted.

* **How to avoid counterfeits:**
    * Look for geographical indication certification mark No. 10636089; according to the provincial database, ten companies are authorized to use it.
    * Check that the producer is from Jinyun County.
    * The leaf is golden-yellow with green, the liquor tender green with a golden glint.
    * Do not confuse it with yellow tea by class: *Jìnyún huángchá* has no sealed yellowing.

**12. Interesting Facts:**

* All bushes of the 中黄2号 cultivar trace back to a single mutant from a village garden.
* The leaf is yellow only in spring and autumn; in summer it turns green.
* The mark was registered before the cultivar itself was approved: the mark in 2014, the cultivar in 2015.
* The cultivar from Jinyun has spread to other provinces; it is also the basis of, for example, Guangyuan Huangcha in Sichuan.

**13. Comparison with Other Light-Leaf Teas:**

* **Anji Baicha ([安吉白茶](https://thetea.app/article/anji-baicha)):** A green tea from the white-leaf cultivar 白叶一号; the same name trap, only with “white”.
* **Anji Huangjin Ya ([安吉黄金芽](https://thetea.app/article/anji-huangjin-ya)):** A yellow-leaf green tea of Anji County in the north of Zhejiang.
* **Guangyuan Huangcha ([广元黄茶](https://thetea.app/article/guangyuan-huangcha)):** A yellow-leaf green tea of Sichuan from the 中黄1号 and 中黄2号 cultivars.
* **Junshan Yinzhen ([君山银针](https://thetea.app/article/junshan-yin-zhen)):** A true yellow tea with sealed yellowing — for contrast.

**In Conclusion:**

*Jìnyún huángchá* is a green tea that is called yellow because of the color of its leaf. Its source is a single mutant from a garden in Shanghu village that became the 中黄2号 cultivar: sunflower-colored spring shoots, up to 8.3 % amino acids in the raw material, a tender fresh taste and a golden glint in the green liquor. The mark has protected the name since 2014.