Oriental Beauty is one of the most distinctive oolongs we carry, and once you know the story behind it, the flavor makes a lot more sense. This tea gets its name — and its signature character — from a tiny green leafhopper, Empoasca flavescens
, that feeds on the young leaves before harvest.
The plant responds to that stress by producing the compounds that give this tea its natural, caramel-like sweetness. It also means the tea has to be grown without pesticides, since the leafhopper can only thrive in a genuinely balanced garden ecosystem. In a strange way, a good Oriental Beauty crop is proof the garden is being farmed the right way.
The tea traces back to Taiwan in the early 1900s. As the story goes, a farmer near Xinzhu found his tea garden badly damaged by these same leafhoppers one summer. Rather than waste the harvest, he picked the bitten leaves anyway and processed them into oolong.
The result had an unexpected caramel character, and it sold well enough that the loss turned into something else entirely. Today, a good amount of Oriental Beauty is grown just across the strait in South Fujian, since the region shares Taiwan's high mountain growing conditions, and there's a long history of shared tea knowledge between the two.
You may also see this tea called Peng Feng Wu Long, or "fat oolong," for the short, plump shape of the finished leaf, or Bai Hao Wu Long, "white hair oolong," for the pale tips visible throughout.
Smooth and rich with excellent body and mouthfeel, this is a supreme oolong that shows off the toast-and-jam character Oriental Beauty is known for. In many parts of the world, tea lovers will tell you that you haven't really had oolong until you've tried this one.
Brewing:
Tea: 5 grams per 4 ounces of water (118ml) Water temperature: 185°F - 85°C Infusion length: 1 minute. May be infused 3 additional times.
