Glass and porcelain
Yellow tea is a bud tea with a narrow temperature window, and the neutral materials suit it best.
Glass is the classic match, and for Junshan Yinzhen（君山银针）it is the only one that makes sense.
The buds rise and sink three times in a tall glass, and a porcelain gaiwan hides all of that.
A glass of 250 ml with straight sides gives them the height they need.
Porcelain comes second and is the practical choice for the other two classic names.
Mengding Huangya and Huoshan Huangya are brewed for the liquor rather than for the show.
Both materials are non porous, so neither carries a trace of yesterday’s session.
Both shed heat quickly, which is what a tea brewed at 85 °C needs.
Water above about 90 °C flattens a yellow tea, and heat retained in the wall does the same thing.
Thickness therefore decides more than material, and a thick glass cup behaves like a thick pot.
A white interior shows the liquor, which with yellow tea is a reliable guide to the yellowing.
A pale yellow-green liquor means the step was short, and a deeper gold means it ran long.
Clay
Clay is the wrong material for yellow tea, and the reason is more specific than usual.
The category is defined by men huang（闷黄）, the step that turns a green leaf sweet.
That sweetness is faint, and anything the vessel adds sits right on top of it.
Unglazed clay adds heat retention first, and heat is what destroys the sweetness.
A thick clay wall keeps the water hot after the pour and cooks the leaf instead of steeping it.
Absorption is the second problem, since clay holds the aroma of the previous session.
A pot used on ripe pu-erh will make a yellow tea taste of fermentation for months.
That is the loudest smell in the trade, and it buries the quietest note in the cupboard.
Zisha（紫砂）is the material in question, and its pores are the entire mechanism.
Seasoning a pot on yellow tea is also pointless, because the leaf is too faint to leave much.
A pot used only for yellow tea will mostly smell of tea that has gone stale.
No advantage on either side, so leave clay out of this category entirely.
Matching to the tea
Match by temperature first, since every yellow tea brews below boiling.
Water at 85 °C suits all three classic names, and the vessel should not push it higher.
Match by grade second, and remember that all three are bud teas picked in early spring.
A bud grade needs height, so the glass has to be tall rather than wide.
Match by freshness third, which sounds odd but decides more of the cup than the material does.
Yellow tea loses its sweetness faster than green tea, and a stale one tastes of nothing in any vessel.
Buy in small amounts, 50 grams at a time, and drink it inside a season.
Fix the dose at 5 grams in 250 ml for glass, and weigh it rather than guessing.
Buds are light and bulky, and a scale reading to 0.1 g settles the question.
Hold the first infusion to 30 seconds and taste before you extend the later ones.
Sweet corn in the aroma means the tea was made well, and the vessel cannot add that.
Material is the last of these decisions, and it is the one with the smallest effect.
Buying advice
Buy a tall thin walled glass, and buy a porcelain gaiwan as the second piece.
A gaiwan of 100 ml covers everything the glass cannot, and costs very little.
Look for straight sides on the glass and a flat fitting lid on the gaiwan.
Check the glaze for pinholes, since a damaged glaze stops being neutral.
Ignore decoration, maker names and anything described as hand finished.
None of those change the cup, and all of them are priced into it.
Avoid anything sold as zisha（紫砂）for under twenty dollars, which is slip cast and coloured.
Yellow tea has no use for clay in any case, so the point is mostly to avoid wasting money.
Put the budget into freshness instead, and buy from a seller with fast turnover.
A tea picked this spring beats one picked last spring in any vessel ever made.
Ask for the harvest date before you ask about anything else on the shelf.
Fresh leaf, a tall glass and cheap neutral ware, and the category is as good as it gets.