ORIENTAL BEAUTY COMPETITION WINNER OOLONG TEA

Every year we are excited to buy this very special tea from the annual competition. We buy a number of the 600g selections that achieve First Class status, which is around just 2% of all entrants to the competition. We feel privileged to be able to offer it. These champion teas have a heady perfume and an almost ever-changing aroma that flits from honey to peach to alpine flowers in a breath. They are a perfectly balanced cup of all that one could wish to find in an 'Oriental Beauty' tea. A sweet, perfectly ripe fruit flavour, floral fragrance and a long-lasting aftertaste. You can detect apricot, muscat grape, geranium, elder, wildflower honey, sandalwood, rose, caramel, gardenia and lilac to name but a few. The competition teas are awarded marks by Taiwan's top tea masters using the following standard. 30% of the marks are given to the colour of the infusion, 30% to the flavour, 30% to the 'throat rhyme' (aftertaste), and 10% to the leaf appearance. Oriental Beauty, also known as also known as Dong Fang Mei Ren, Bai Hao Oolong and Pom Fong is considered among many experts to be the best tea in the world and it is hard to argue. It is also an extraordinary one, in its beautiful appearance, complex infusion and astounding fragrance which one can barely believe comes from the tea plant and not a grand parfumier's blending room. That said, I doubt, even with all the fragrances in the world available to them that they could come up with a scent as delightful and yet completely natural as found in this tea. I like to keep the used leaves in my tea taster's covered cup or small teapot for a few days, returning to an ever-intensifying fragrance that can be almost overwhelming and certainly uplifting, bringing another unexpected pleasure long after the tea is drunk. Naturally, these teas are in very scarce supply and this is because production relies upon a wonderful trick from nature. For just a few weeks in the summer, in just two small counties, Hsinchu and Miaoli in Taiwan, a little grasshopper-like insect is responsible for creating Oriental Beauty's incredibly rich, sweet, smooth and fragrant character. They feast on the emerging buds and secrete an enzyme, which inhibits the photosynthesis of the leaf and causes an increase in the levels of healthy polyphenols. Naturally, this means the garden must never be sprayed with insecticides. This magic or chemistry is also why the best of these teas appear multi-hued in the dry leaf form, gold, green, brown, black and silvery white buds delight the eyes. The processing of these highest quality oolongs is carried out by a tea master whose experience and technique will have been learned over at least thirty years and is as important as the growing conditions to the quality of the final product. Dependent on how oxidised and roasted they are, we are given an incredible variety of spectacular flavours and fragrances to experience. Each 600g of tea requires four to five thousand bud and leaf sets to make, compared to one thousand for other high-quality teas. It is thought to have been named 'Oriental Beauty' by a Queen of England, Victoria or Elizabeth the Second, depending which legend you read. Whoever it was, it is hard to dispute their sentiment and judgment when you have tried it for yourself. It is in every way a beautiful tea. In common with the other top oolong, when made in the 'Gong Fu' style, the beautiful leaves will yield up to ten infusions.