Oriental Beauty Tea is a competition oolong tea from MiaoLi, Taiwan. It is a highly oxidized tea (85%) with a stone fruit aroma, smooth body, and lingering honey aftertaste.
800 handpicked young tea buds yields to one bag of Oriental Beauty. The tea plants are grown without insecticides to encourage a common leaf-hopper insect, the tea jassid (Jacobiasca Formosana), to feed on the leaves, stems, and buds. This leads to the plant's defensive production of monoterpene diol and hotrienol which gives the tea its unique flavor. The insect bites start the oxidation of the leaves and tips and add a sweet honey-like aroma to the tea.
