English Tea Store Tea Header

Tea Blog

Official Blog of the English Tea Store


This Tea Is Bugging Me or The Secret of Oriental Beauty Oolong

Does your tea bug you? It would if it’s Oriental Beauty Oolong, one of the most exotic teas and a bit of a rarity, with only about 20 kilograms of leaves processed per hectare. But it might not be so exotic without some insects getting into the act. Those little buggers chomp their way into tea fame.

A leaf hopper enjoying a fine day of leaf sucking. (Photo source: Yahoo! Images)
A leaf hopper enjoying a fine day of leaf sucking. (Photo source: Yahoo! Images)

Oriental Beauty Oolong (White Tip Oolong, Bai Hao Oolong, Formosa Oolong) is from Taiwan and is said to owe its sweet flavor and fruity aroma (the reason for the nickname “Champagne Oolong”) to tiny bites on the leaves by insects. For those of us who have tried and fell in love with this tea, you can thank one tea farmer willing to take a risk.

At first, tea farmers thought that insect bites had ruined the tea leaves in their gardens. However, one bold farmer harvested and processed the leaves and sold them to a tea trader named John Dodd, where it is supposed to have made its way into Her Majesty’s teacup in the UK. It became known as Oriental Beauty (“Dong Fang Mei Ren” in Chinese), but also picked up the name “Bragger’s Tea” (Pong Fong Cha) when the farmer who had dared to harvest the leaves and got a high price for them told his fellow farmers about it. They thought he was just bragging.

The insect responsible for this taste sensation goes by a variety of names, depending on who’s telling the tale. Some call it “criquets” (possibly a misspelling of “crickets”) while others call it a “leaf hopper” or “aphid” (a scourge as any rosarian knows), some say the insect is a “green fly,” and another uses the name “cicada.” The best name is the green leafhopper (Jacobiasca formosana), but whatever name it’s called, it still does its magic on the tea leaves, sucking the phloem juices of the tea stems, leaves, and buds. This produces monoterpene diol and hotrienol, starting oxidation of leaves and tips which adds a sweet note to the tea liquid.

The tea is also a more highly oxidized (65-85%) oolong. In fact, the oxidation stage of the processing acts not only on the chemicals in the tea leaves but also on the tiny bits of saliva deposited by the insects when they bite the leaves, thus adding to that distinctive sweetness. The leaves do not have that fresh smell, and the liquid is smooth and sweet, not astringent or bitter.

This tea also gets better with aging and proper storage (away from light, heat, and humidity). You can also steep the leaves 3 or 4 times, and maybe even a 5th. Use a gaiwan or glass teapot for steeping small quantities (about 8 ounces) and enjoy sipping the liquid at a leisurely pace. Start with a very brief (about 30-45 seconds) first steep with subsequent steeps being slightly longer.

Once you taste this tea, you won’t worry about the bug part. You will just enjoy!

© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.



6 responses to “This Tea Is Bugging Me or The Secret of Oriental Beauty Oolong”

  1. […] want to even think about those little leafhoppers that are responsible for the amazing flavor of Oriental Beauty […]

  2. […] This Tea Is Bugging Me or The Secret of Oriental Beauty Oolong […]

  3. […] — Created in 1983 by the Taiwan Tea Research Institute, this cultivar is a good one for making Oriental Beauty. The tea steeps up a clear liquid that has an aroma some say is like fine Lychee juice but with a […]

  4. […] should become known as “Formosa” Oolong Teas. Taiwanese Pouchong (low-fermented) Oolong teas, Oriental Beauty Oolong tea, Dong Ding Oolong tea and also Ti Guan Yin Oolong teas developed their own character and name […]

  5. […] Or were they? Though the insects were especially voracious in a certain year some of the farmers decided to follow the age-old dictum of taking the lemons they were presented with and making them into lemonade. They went ahead and harvested the insect-damaged leaves and took them to market just as they always had. The tea was an unexpected hit and brought the farmers such high prices that other farmers were skeptical and gave it the name Pengfeng Cha, or Bragger’s Tea. […]

  6. […] you dream of Amsterdam.” But we decided to go with a tried and tested tea, and so settled on Formosa Oolong. This Taiwanese oolong tea has a slightly sweeter taste, which some people describe as peachy, or […]

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

Website Powered by WordPress.com.

%d bloggers like this: