東方美人 Dong Fang Mei Ren

This might be the most unusual Chinese tea. While it is an oolong, it's made not like any other oolong. As a result, it tastes more like a mix of red tea with aged white tea. Very unusual taste and it is very popular in Europe. I personally pay more attention to its fragrance: light honey notes, slight sourness, floral, very delicate and ... unique!

It's original name is Bai Hao Oolong Cha (白毫烏龍茶) - White Hair or White Fur Oolong. Today it's more commonly named by a poetic name Dong Fang Mei Ren (東方美人茶) - Oriental Beauty. Legend says, these name was given by the queen Victoria. Or queen Elizabeth II. Or some other queen. I personally doubt that, since it would be documented.

The other interesting name for this tea is Peng Feng Cha (膨風茶) - Braggart's Tea. The name was given, when farmer, who made this tea was bragging a lot, about how he sold it for twice the price of what he is usually selling his other teas for.

The story of this tea goes like this:

Part of tea manufacturing process is sorting. Damaged leafs are usually discarded. There are not many insects, that enjoy eating tea, but cicadas are among the few, that do. They are accountable for large portion of damaged leaves, that can not be used for making oolong. However, as it usually goes, someone took discarded leaves, prepared tea from them and customers valued highly the new tea. Due to the fact, that cicadas damage leaves, while it is still growing - fermentation starts when leaf is still alive. This changes chemistry of the leaf and produces very slow fermentation. That is the main reason, why taste and aroma of this tea is so unique. Needless to say, next year, every farmer was producing this tea.

Oriental Beauty - is one of the most favored tea of my beauty :)