Golden Bud

From Yuyiao in Zhejiang Province, China, this rare green tea owes its character to a genetic quirk: the plant is an albino cultivar that cannot produce chlorophyll, so it never turns green during the growing season. That inability to green up has a meaningful consequence for what ends up in the cup. Without the right conditions for catechin development, the plant instead builds up amino acids much more than regular green teas, and these amino acids are what give Golden Bud its full body and lack of briskness. The result is a tea that sits apart from most Chinese greens, mellow where others are brisk, with a natural richness that comes from the leaf’s chemistry rather than from any added ingredient. It is a genuinely unusual cup, one that rewards anyone curious about what green tea can be beyond the familiar vegetal and grassy range.