Dong Fang Mei Ren tea ( or more recently White tip oolong (in Chinese: Bai Hao Oolong tea), is an Oolong tea produced in Hsinchu

Hsinchu

Hsinchu City is a city in northern Taiwan. Hsinchu is popularly nicknamed "The Windy City" for its windy climate.Hsinchu City is administered as a special municipality within Taiwan . The city is bordered by Hsinchu County to the north and east, Miaoli County to the south, and the Taiwan Strait...

, Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

. A heavily fermented, non-roasted, tip-type oolong, traditionally known as Oriental Beauty or more recently White Tip Oolong, in Chinese: Bai Hao Oolong tea, Pon Fon Cha( 膨風茶old Taiwanese term), Boast tea, and Champagne Oolong.

This tea is a tippy tea, with natural fruity aromas that produces a sweet tasting bright-reddish orange tea liquor without a strong bitterness. Dried leaves of high quality should exhibit a pleasant aroma with leaf colouration of dark purple and brown tones with white hairs.

Tea leaf hopper

Oriental Beauty can't use any pesticides while the leaf hoppers are present, since it need leaf hoppers (Cicadellidae： Jacobiasca formosana (Paoli)) for its special flavor. Leaf hoppers' precious bites could induce the defence response, some special chemicals, of tea tree bugs for attrated the leaf hoppers natural enemy! Those chemicals also what makes this tea more special (and more expensive) than most other teas. It is a heavily fermented oxidized Oolong harvested from young leaves and tips, in the summer, just after they have been bitten by the small green insect called the tea leaf hopper or tea jassid. Their bite starts the oxidation of the leaves and tips and adds a sweet note to the tea characteristic.

History

In the early 20th century when a British tea merchant presented a sample of this tea to Queen Elizabeth II. From there, the Queen named this tea as Oriental Beauty. This tea dates from the end of the 19th century, when Taiwan started exporting its Oolong teas overseas. John Dodd eported tea to the west, Formosa oolong. Some tea farmers proud what a high price they were able to sell this tea, therefore in Chinese/Taiwanese, named it "Ponghongday / Pong Fong Cha" or "Boast tea".