Reddit reviews The Tea Enthusiast's Handbook: A Guide to Enjoying the World's Best Teas

This for practical, everyday applications. For fun, historical stuff, try the New Tea Lover's Treasury

A book that I found extremely helpful when starting out in the tea business was The Tea Enthusiast's Handbook. It'll cover all the bases regarding the different classes of teas, manufacture, terroir, how to store and age them, the history of tea, and a bunch of other useful information. Everyone at the tea shop I work at owns a copy, haha. It's like our tea bible.

I enjoyed The Tea Enthusiast's Handbook, which helped me to understand a bit more about the differences between all the different classes of tea.

The way of Tea -which is more going into Taoist philosophy of tea but it does have some history.

Steeped in history, The art of tea -That book has the history of tea in every area plus great images.

The Tea Enthusiast's Handbook -Quick guide to tea from every region and how to steep. Plus some great pictures on the color of a hand full of teas.

Tea, A global History

The book of tea -A lot of people seem to like this book but I personally find it a bit preachy in the sense of West vs. East and those evil Westerners.

A Cup of Tea -I personally just like this book. It's not tea information but instead tea quotes and some recipes. Each page has a cute little tea cup with a quote.

These are just the ones I have read but there are many more out there. Check your library to see if they have any books on tea.

I gained most of my tea knowledge from http://www.teaclass.com and reading this book: http://www.amazon.com/Tea-Enthusiasts-Handbook-Guide-Worlds/dp/158008804X

r/tea also helps too. Read the Tea FAQ and some articles that people post and you should be set!

There are also some movies/documentaries about tea out there but I havent had the time to watch it - here is one I'm aware of : http://www.amazon.com/All-In-This-Tea/dp/B001LYX2IG/ref=sr_1_1?s=instant-video&ie=UTF8&qid=1320334819&sr=1-1

According to my sources (this book and this book - great reads BTW, i suggest OP check them out) it's made like green tea but there's an additional process after firing the leaves, called Smothering, men huang, or "sealing yellow" that involves multiple iterations of lightly heating/steaming the leaves -> wrapping them in paper/cloth -> letting them rest to "reabsorb their aromatics and breathe at the same time".

The descriptions in the two books differ, but only slightly:

Pettigrew specifies that the process is a "non-enzymatic fermentation" and the leaves are wrapped in something called "cow skin paper" (Heiss just notes it's "a cloth").

Heiss brings up the names smothering/men huang/sealing yellow, and notes that the heating method for this step is steaming (as opposed to Pettigrew's "gently firing")

The other tea book I have (Harney&Son's guide to tea) just confesses his ignorance on the process and makes a wild guess on how yellow tea is made. But since it's just speculation it's safe to ignore it.