Gui Fei oolong tea, Taiwan 貴妃烏龍茶

This oolong is crafted from hand picked leaves of Jin Xuan ‘Golden Daylily’ (金萱) TRES #12 cultivar. This tea was picked in June 2024, baked in Oct 2024. 

Beauty teas are unique for their honey-like flavour that occurs due to presence of little green leaf hoppers that nibble the tea leaves during growth. The tea plants react to this attack by producing more polyphenols, which during processing give the unique ‘beauty tea’ flavour. Most of these, such as the well-known Oriental Beauty tea are more heavily oxidised oolongs, which some people even class as black teas. This offering is quite unique as both of these oolongs have undergone a medium level of oxidation (around 40%) so they are much lighter than the standard Oriental Beauty Tea. As presence of green leaf hoppers is essential for development of the unique ‘bug bitten’ taste, these teas are produced to organic standards.

This particular Gui Fei Oolong started life as the Mi Xian Oolong and then it underwent a three stage baking process by the tea master with several week-long mellowing breaks in between. This processing allows the flavours and aromas to stabilise and fully saturate the leaves. While altering and improving the flavour, it also acts as a stabiliser for the flavour allowing the tea to remain consistent over longer periods of time. It also brings out a more distinctive wild honey flavour, with sweet, floral and woody notes in this tea.

Origin- Zhu Shan, Nantou 

Garden elevation- 450-500m 

Harvest date- Produced in June, 2024, Baked in OCT 2024 

Picking style- hand picked leaves

Baking level 5/10

Cultivar- TTES 12, JinXuan 

Producer- Mr Chen, baked by Yu Wen