Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: T-Oolong Tea
Tea Description:
This Honey Beauty Oolong is all natural, handpicked, handcrafted and produced from Qingxin Dapa varietals, the tea leaves often used to produce Oriental Beauty oolong. This tea tastes similar to Oriental beauty but not quite the same. The taste and aroma of the tea are honey sweet, rich, and pleasant with a long lasting honey sweet aftertaste. This tea stands up well to multiple infusions, and has the complexities of an oolong in taste and aroma, but the appearance and strength of a black tea.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I love a good Oriental Beauty Oolong, and when I read the name of this Honey Beauty Oolong Tea from T-Oolong Tea, I was intrigued … I was curious to find out how similar to an Oriental Beauty it would be.
The dry leaf appearance IS indeed very similar, with its dark chocolate colored leaves. The aroma is sweet, reminding me a bit more of the smell of molasses than of honey. It’s a very pleasant fragrance … sort of like walking into a kitchen when my gramma would make pecan pie. It smells a bit like that sweet, molasses-y filling of a pecan pie (but not so much like the actual pecans!) The brewed tea offers a different scent with notes of fruit, flower and yes, even a hint of honey.
The first cup (containing infusions #1 and 2 following a quick 15 second rinse) is very delicately flavored, and I noticed that it took a few sips for the flavors to begin to develop on my palate. By mid-cup, I was noticing a lovely honey-esque tone start to emerge. Notes of stone fruit … somewhere between nectarine and plum. It is sweet but there is a hint of contrasting sour there too.
The second cup (infusions #3 and 4) offered a stronger flavor than the first, and was my favorite cup of the three cups that I enjoyed of this tea. I noticed a stronger fruit note, and the honey notes are more profound with this cup. It’s sweet … and indeed beautiful! Honey Beauty Oolong seems an appropriate name for this tea.
With the third cup (infusions #5 and 6), I noticed the flavors becoming … not really “softer” but more unified. The honey note was not quite as focused, and the fruit note was less distinct. It tasted more like … well, imagine a combination of nectarines and plums that have been roasted to concentrate the flavor and bring out the sweetness of the fruit, and then drizzling this roasted fruit medley with sweet honey. That’s what I taste! YUM!
This tea is definitely a treat for Oolong aficionados!
