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Bug-bitten "Oriental Beauty" Dongfang Meiren Oolong Tea

$35.00

DUE TO HIGH DEMAND, THIS TEA IS SOLD OUT

Shifu, this is such a beautiful tea. Black, brown, white, yellow, and green... the colors remind me of the autumn leaves!

Lao Cha answers — This tea represents the cycles of nature. Every summer, the leafhoppers come to feast on these nutritious tea leaves. Thanks to the natural defense system of the bushes, they provide us with an even sweeter, more vibrant tea than before. The tea leaves, harvested in the summer, are ready for us to enjoy when autumn comes around. Enjoy the honey-like taste and be grateful for the forces that provide us with this exceptional tea. 

 

Our Oriental Beauty Oolong is an exceptionally unique representative of its kind. The tea is grown by partnering farmers, Mr. Yang and Mr. Zhang, in Yunnan, China, following quintessentially Taiwanese oolong processing techniques.

Dongfan Meiren undergoes a common tea processing technique adopted from Taiwan, creating a final product known as "bug-bitten tea." The tea gardens where the bushes grow are kept natural, without pesticides. Each year thousands of bugs, known as leafhoppers, come to feast on the tea leaves. The leaves, in turn, produce certain enzymes and send sugars to the bitten areas. This alters the final taste of the tea wonderfully, creating a honey-like flavor and turning the tea tips white.

After harvest, the tea is heavily oxidized and is almost comparable to black tea. The taste is bright and well-balanced, with notes of fruits and flowers, with its lingering sweet finish gently coating the palate. The tea leaves bake in layers with hot air coming from the bottom up. The first roast requires a temperature of around 90ºC for about 30min, which leaves the tea leaves half-dry. Then the leaves are left to "rest" to let the remaining moisture in stems spread out to the leaves evenly. Then comes the final baking, done at around 80ºC, for about 3 hours, to fully dry the tea leaves. The result is the most heavily oxidized tea among loose leaf oolong tea, at around 85%. The relatively cool temperature preserves tea's natural aroma.

Our Oriental Beauty has plump leaves with a charming natural fragrance. The tea soup is darker than other oolongs, with a clear and bright amber color. The aroma carries honey and ripe fruit notes. When the tea soup enters the throat, it is sweet and mellow.

Our Oriental Beauty oolong tea is made of young buds and leaves, rich in amino acids, giving the sweet taste of the tea soup. Due to heavy oxidation, more than half of the catechins oxidize, reducing bitterness and astringency. As a high-quality representative of this tea type, it has a pronounced ripe fruit aroma and a honey-like taste. A distinctive sweet aftertaste blooms in the mouth and lingers on the tongue and cheeks.



 
 

Buffalo Tea Gardens

 

Mr.Yang and Mr.Zhang are two tea-farming partners from Pu-er, Yunnan. They are very knowledgeable in tea growing techniques, inventive, curious, and not shy of experimentation. Yang and Zhang use cultivars brought from Taiwan and local ancient, wild trees to create their unique tea varieties.

 Mr. Young's Family  

Place of Origin: Mt. Dahei, Pu'er, Yunnan, China
• Altitude: 2000m
Harvest Time: Jun 2021

• Picking Standard: One bud, two leaves
Dry Leaf: The dry bug-bitten leaves are 5 different colors: black, brown, white, yellow, and green.
• Roast: Light roast.
Aroma: Honey, foliage, and champagne.
 Taste: Notes of honey, chrysanthemum, and ginger. Very mellow with a long-lingering sweet finish. 
• Tea Tree: Xiao Ye Zhong (小叶种)
• Cultivar: Jin Xuan (金萱)

  

Brewing guidelines:

        205℉ / 95℃ 

1g per 50ml   3-5min

     1g per 20ml   10sec + 5sec for each subsequent infusion 

Customer Reviews

Based on 2 reviews
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D
Dan G
Fabulous tea

Incredibly sweet and zesty… best way to describe it. Has a ginger like zesty/tingly feel and a taste that is somewhere between sweet and floral that only oolongs have… must be the “muscatel” flavor they talk about. Very enjoyable tea. Highly recommend.

D
David Michael White
A Solid Oolong

Like the Jade Dragon green tea, this oolong has a noticeable fruity fragrance before I brewed it. After brewing the leaves has a flowery smell to it. The taste has a vague familiarity of previous Oolongs from Taiwan but with what I suspect some pu-erh influence. While it is not my personal favorite oolong, it was delicious and I would not refuse a cup of this oolong if I was offered it.