Fujian Oriental Beauty - Bai Hao Oolong | Dong Fang Mei Ren - Option: 50 g

Oriental Beauty (Dong Fang Mei Ren) is a quite unique oolong tea. It is unique in appearance in that it has white hair (very few oolong teas have white hair) on the leaf and the tea body is short and fat. Other names are Peng Feng Wu Long (fat oolong) or Bai Hao Wu Long (white hair oolong). It is unique in taste as it provides a natural caramel flavor. It is also unique in processing. The tea leaves have to be bitten by an insect, green fly Empoasca flavescens, in Chinese called Fuchenzi 浮尘子 “Floating Dust”, to stimulate a production of a specific substance in the leaves, which gives the tea liquer a caramel flavor. The last but not least, it is unique in the terroir it requires. It must grow in high mountain tea garden because the green hoppers can live there in natural ecological balance.

Oriental Beauty oolong was originated in Taiwan at the beginning of 20th century. The story has it that once upon a time, the tea garden of a farmer in Xinzhu of Taiwan was severely attacked by green flies in Summer. The tea leaves were damaged the big deal. The farmer did not accept the idea of a loss and harvested the damaged leaves to make oolong tea. The final tea gave an unexpected fascinating caramel flavour. He sold the tea very well. Nowadays a lot of Oriental Beauty oolong teas are produced in South Fujian. In Taiwan there are not so many high mountain tea gardens as in South Fujian. These two places are very close and similar, just across a bay. There are many tea related discussions between Taiwan and South Fujian.

The tea grows in Dai Yun Shan of South Fujian. The altitude is 1100m. The cultivar is Jin Xuan.