What is yellow tea? How we make Mississippi Sunshine in the USA

Yellow tea is a tea made from Camellia sinensis leaves with an extra processing stage called yellowing, which helps develop a mellow flavor. At The Great Mississippi Tea Company in Brookhaven, Mississippi, we grow and process our own version: Mississippi Sunshine. Making it takes us about five days. Brewing it takes you about three minutes.

If you’re curious about green tea but don’t love its grassy character, this is a tea worth getting to know.

Yellow tea: your questions answered quickly

Our Mississippi Sunshine product page includes the tasting notes, ingredients, and brewing directions. Research on yellow tea documents the flavor changes during yellowing and the presence of caffeine. Read the study.

What is yellowing, and why does it change the taste?

Yellowing is the extra warm, moist processing stage that sets yellow tea apart from green tea. Heat, moisture, and time change compounds within the leaves, affecting their color, aroma, and taste.

The interesting part is that processing can change perceived sweetness without adding a sweetener. In a 2022 study, researchers found that longer yellowing treatments reduced green-tea aroma and increased sweet and mellow qualities in the teas they tested. That study examined a different process from ours, but it helps explain why yellowing matters to the cup. Research on yellowing and flavor.

For someone choosing a tea, that means yellow tea offers a different flavor experience even though it comes from the same plant as other familiar teas.

How do we make yellow tea at GMTC?

Our yellow-tea processing video follows the batch from trays of leaf to finished loose-leaf tea. There are water baths, two rounds of rolling, and quite a bit of breaking up clumps along the way.

Here’s what happens on our farm.

1. The leaves spend time on trays under lights

We begin by spreading the leaves onto trays for the light stage of our withering process. Once that stage is complete, we gather the leaves back up for the next step.

2. We vacuum-seal the leaves for sous-vide baths

We pack the leaves into vacuum bags, seal them, and place the bags into a temperature-controlled water bath using sous-vide equipment.

If you associate sous vide with cooking dinner, seeing it used to make tea may be a surprise. The leaves stay inside their sealed bags while the surrounding water provides controlled heat.

After the first bath, we remove and cool the bags, then adjust the water for the next stage. The bags go back in for the extended warm stage of our five-day process.

This is one of the most distinctive parts of the method we show in the video: making yellow tea here involves much more than rolling and drying a harvest.

3. The leaves rest before the first roll

Once the bath stage is complete, we take the leaves out of the bags and spread them onto trays again. After their resting period, they go into the roller.

The first roll uses very light pressure. When it finishes, we remove the leaves and break apart the clumps before continuing.

4. A second roll adds a little more pressure

We return the loosened leaves to the roller for a second pass. This time, we increase the pressure slightly to create a tighter roll and provide the limited cell disruption we want for this tea.

Then we empty the roller and loosen the leaves again. Each time, we take care to gather the little bits left behind, too.

5. We spread the leaves like cheese on a pizza

To load the drying trays, we scatter the leaves evenly across the surface, checking again for large lumps. Think of spreading cheese over a homemade pizza: distribute it across the tray instead of leaving it piled in one spot.

It’s a familiar kitchen comparison for a careful tea-making step. Even coverage helps prepare the leaves for drying.

6. The tea dries for roughly two hours

Our dryer is set to 90°C, or 194°F, and this stage takes roughly two hours. Its interior rotates to help the tea dry evenly.

Once drying is complete, the finished yellow tea is ready for packaging.

Those are processing temperatures, by the way. Your cup uses the gentler brewing directions below.

Why does our yellow tea take five days?

Because the warm stage, resting, rolling, and drying are all part of the tea we’re making. The time between the visible jobs matters alongside the hands-on work.

That five-day timeline describes our GMTC process. It is not a rule that every yellow tea takes five days to make.

When you look at a spoonful of finished leaves, you don’t see the repeated tray loading, bagging, bath changes, rolling, and loosening. Following a batch through the farm makes that work visible.

How do you brew Mississippi Sunshine?

Start with our recommended method:

1. Put 1 rounded teaspoon of loose tea into an infuser.

2. Add 8 ounces of water at 175°F (approximately 80°C).

3. Steep for 3 minutes, then remove the leaves.

Try your first sip plain so you can explore the tea’s own flavor. You can also steep the leaves again and notice how the next cup changes. Mississippi Sunshine brewing guide.

Does yellow tea have less caffeine than green tea?

Don’t assume it does. Yellow tea contains caffeine, and a smooth taste does not tell you how much is in your cup. Research comparing brewed white, green, and black teas found overlapping caffeine levels rather than a reliable ranking by tea type. Those results are not a measurement of Mississippi Sunshine. Study of caffeine in brewed teas.

Come a little closer to the tea in your cup

Mississippi Sunshine gives you a chance to taste yellow tea with a direct connection to the farm that makes it. You can follow the work, see the equipment, and hear the everyday explanations behind the finished leaves.

Watch the full five-day process, explore Mississippi Sunshine, or plan a farm visit to get to know us a little better.

Which surprised you more: the sous-vide baths or the pizza comparison?