Chen Hui Yi

Chen Hui Yi has spent over fifteen years immersed in the subtle craft of white, green, and yellow Chinese teas — categories often overshadowed by darker teas yet demanding extraordinary precision, especially on a restaurant floor. Based in Guangdong, she works directly with smallholder gardens in Fuding and Zhengyuan, building relationships that go back to her early apprenticeship under a master tea maker in 2009. That apprenticeship taught her that Yín Zhēn (银针) silver needle white tea is not merely delicate but a test of water temperature and pour height, and she has turned that insight into a systematic language for F&B teams.

Her thread ‘Service temperature realities — keeping tea right at the table’ on tea.restaurant unpacks the exact vessel choices, kettle holds, and pour cadences that prevent white teas from turning bitter or green teas from tasting stewed. She advocates for an 80 °C drop‑and‑hold technique for Bái Mǔ Dān (白牡丹) and a 72 °C ceramic‑rested pour for Bì Luó Chūn (碧螺春), backed by side‑by‑side tastings she conducts with restaurant staff.

The vegetarian tasting menus thread ‘Vegetarian tasting menus and Chinese tea — natural alignment’ emerged from a year‑long residency at a plant‑based Copenhagen kitchen, now documented on tea.restaurant. Chen Hui Yi demonstrated that Shòu Méi (寿眉) white tea, with its honeyed‑melon finish, can lift a celery root and apple consommé without clashing, while a 2018 aged Yuè Guāng Bái (月光白) from her personal stash becomes the natural bridge to a cashew‑creamed fungi course. Her framework now guides chefs at five properties across Scandinavia.

In August 2025 she brought this work to a live audience through the Copenhagen pairing pop‑up — five courses + five teas, a sold‑out evening listed on tea.events. Guests moved through a sequence of Lóng Jǐng (龙井) green tea with smoked cod, a 2016 Mí Lán Xiāng (蜜兰香) Dan Cong oolong with celeriac, and a rare Jūn Shān Yín Zhēn (君山银针) yellow tea with poached pear, each service temperature meticulously engineered.

Chen Hui Yi teaches the advanced module ‘White and Yellow Tea for the Dining Room’ at tea.school, where sommeliers and restaurant managers learn to calibrate extraction based on pot material, leaf ratio, and ambient humidity. Her approach is rooted in the conviction that Chinese tea, when served with the same rigor as wine, can anchor a tasting menu — not as an afterthought, but as the primary pairing architecture.