Oolong · Hsinchu, Taiwan
Oriental Beauty
Moderate caffeine
A leafhopper's bite starts the sweetness: the nipped leaf defends itself with honeyed terpenes, and the tea keeps them.
Recipe
- Temperature
- 85 °C · 185 °F
- Leaf
- 4 g
- Water
- 150 ml
- First steep
- 1:00
- Each next steep
- +0:15
- Steeps
- 5
Suggested starting point.
Time this brew with Pekoe
Aroma notes
honey · ripe peach · woodland
Tasting notes
honeyed · muscat · smooth
Harvest
June–July
Making
Plucking 
Withering 
Oxidation 
Rolling 
Firing 
Sorting
Origin
Hsinchu · Taiwan
Against the whole island's calendar, Hsinchu picks its great tea in high summer. The warm low hills ripen the leaf like an orchard.
Lore
In the hills of Hsinchu, farmers let the green leafhopper bite the summer leaf; the plant answers with honey and ripe fruit. Merchants once found the story so unlikely they called it pengfeng cha, braggart's tea, and the name of shame became a badge.
