Tea Type:
Oolong Tea
Where To Buy:
Driftwood Tea
Product Description:
Oriental Beauty is also know by several other names including: Dong Fang Mei Ren; White Tip Oolong; and Champagne Oolong. Whatever name it goes by this is perhaps Taiwan’s most special tea and cited by many connoisseur as one of the world’s finest.
Key Flavours: Ripe fruits, honey and sweet muscatel notes combine with hints of warming spices and exotic woods.
Tasters Review:
This is a terrific Oriental Beauty…a memorable one for sure! I LOVE the honey notes. The fruity-likeness is that of apricot which many of you know I enjoy! There are also subtle hints of sweet wood which are nice and I think the level of this subtleness is right where it needs to be! It’s smooth, too! I can understand what Nicole pointed at with the Darjeeling-esque flavor, too, but, like she said, without ANY astringency!
This is REALLY REALLY Nice~I like this very much!
Osmanthus Oolong Tea from Driftwood Tea
Tea Type:
Oolong
Where To Buy:
Driftwood Tea
Product Description:
Osmanthus Oolong combines high quality Jin Xuan variety loose leaf tea with fresh osmanthus flowers to produce a most spectacular tea. Handmade and scented using only natural methods this is an example of an aromatic tea that tastes as good as it smells.
Key Flavours: Bright soft stone fruits. Juicy peaches and ripe apricots with delicate touches of natural creaminess.
Tasters Review:
The aroma prior to infusing reminds me of a combo of candy and flowers. Strange but true! After infusing it smells like a ‘chewy’ or more savory-type combo of flowers, if that makes sense.
It ‘brews’ up to a lovely lemon-lime type color.
This oolong is neat! I can taste a savory-creamy-flavor with a little hint of grapefruit, almost. On the end sip I can pick up a dried apricot flavor, too, which I LOVE. This is incredible! It’s very unique and darn tasty!
Oriental Beauty Tea (Dong Fang Mei Ren) from Driftwood Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Driftwood Tea
Tea Description:
Oriental Beauty is also know by several other names including: Dong Fang Mei Ren; White Tip Oolong; and Champagne Oolong. Whatever name it goes by this is perhaps Taiwan’s most special tea and cited by many connoisseur as one of the world’s finest.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This is a rather unusual Oriental Beauty – and I mean that in a very good way.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Oriental Beauty Oolong teas, they are one of my favorite Oolong varieties, but, I have come to expect certain things with Oriental Beauty and this one surprised me with some of the flavors I’m tasting here.
Normally, I expect a strong essence of a fuzzy, ripe peach, and I do detect some peach-y notes here, but I’m also tasting a strong muscatel note – so much so that it’s almost Darjeeling-esque! It tastes of fermented grapes, with a hint of wood and musk, and a sweet, apricot/peach note.
The aroma of the brewed tea offers a floral note as well as a woody tone, but I don’t taste a strong floral essence. There are some flowery notes to the flavor, but, the majority of the floral tones remain in the fragrance, and do not translate so much into the flavor.
But that’s alright, because I’m loving the way the flavors come together in this cup, with its strong fruity presence and background notes of wood and musk, hints of spice and whispers of flower. It’s a beautifully complex cup, and offers some surprises to what I expected might be an ordinary cup of Oriental Beauty tea. And while there’s nothing wrong with the typical cup of Oriental Beauty – I love Oriental Beauty Oolong! – it’s nice to have a tea challenge me and question what I thought I knew about this tea!
I love this!
Organic Sticky Rice Oolong from Driftwood Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Driftwood Tea
Tea Description:
As with all of our scented teas, Organic Sticky Rice Oolong is naturally flavoured. It gains its unique scented from a herb native to the Yunnan Province of China – where many of the Chinese/Thai population of Mae Salong descend from – called Nuo Mi Xiang Nen Ye.
The leaves of this small aromatic plant are layered with freshly picked Thai Oolong 17 and allowed to slowly impart their beautifully sweet, sticky rice aroma.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
When I first opened the pouch of this tea, I was shocked by the scent. It really smells like rice. This smells like the Jasmine Rice that I prepare for my family on a regular basis (the rice that I keep on hand and my preferred starch for the family meals). The aroma becomes even more obvious as it brews … it really smells like I’m cooking rice! If my husband were home, he’d be asking me for a bowl of rice!
The flavor is very much like rice too. It tastes like the rice that sort of sticks at the bottom of the rice cooker, that becomes slightly caramelized. This is my favorite part – because it tastes sweet, has a wonderful, chewy texture and has a delicious caramel-y flavor to it (and it’s even better if I top it with a drizzle of melted butter). This rice treat tastes a lot like a cross between kettle corn and caramel corn … and that’s why I love it so much.
And this tea tastes so much like that! But I taste the Oolong too. It has hints of vegetal and floral notes, with the floral notes revealing more of themselves as I continue to sip.
With subsequent infusions, the rice fragrance in the brewed tea diminishes quite a bit, but the flavor is still there. It is softer, but it is still there. It still tastes like popcorn, but, some of the buttery quality is gone now, it’s not quite as creamy now as it was in the first cup. The floral tones begin to emerge – this is a different cup, definitely, than the first. Still very enjoyable, but I find myself wanting a little more of the creamy caramel notes that were so delectable in the first cup.
A really delightful tea – I don’t know if it is quite as good as an Ali Shan Oolong (my favorite!) but, it is definitely good for a change of pace. This could easily become a staple in my cupboard because I can see this tea becoming something I CRAVE! I love it.
Tie Guan Yin (Iron Buddha) from Driftwood Tea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong
Where to Buy: Driftwood Tea
Tea Description:
Fujian Province, China – Spring 2012 Harvest
Tie Guan Yin or Iron buddha is perhaps China’s most famous Oolong. We sourced this handmade version from a small farm in Anxi County, in China’s Fujian Province, and believe this to be one of the finest Tie Guan Yins, or even teas, any of us at driftwood.
Tie Guan Yin is another tea that, depending on where you are, is know by many different names including: Iron Buddha; Iron Goddess of Mercy; Ti Kwan Yin and several others. However, what remains constant is the fact that this tea is among China’s finest, and probably its most well known oolong – no matter what it’s called.
Key Flavours: A sweet honey note, lively florals with a smooth buttery finish.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Driftwood Tea delivers with a delightful aromatic cup of sweet buttery goodness. Steeped this tea is a bright lively golden cup that is very light in color yet full in mouthfeel. There is almost a heaviness in the mouth but the flavor is light and creamy at the same time. Amazing how both can be elements in one wonderful tea. I would never usually describe something buttery or creamy as bright or light. Its such a cheery tea – a real mood lifter.
This tea however is not just a cup of creamy buttery goodness. There is far more depth to this tea, layers of flavor, including floral elements that are not perfume like. There are notes of honeysuckle that remind me of my youth, picking the honeysuckle flowers and sucking out the gooey nectar inside. There is also a note of sweet green veggies.
The lingering after taste is my favorite element in this tea. It is sweet but has savory elements that are outstanding.
It is quite a refreshing cup as well once the after taste does wear off it does not leave you with a drying sensation in the mouth or throat whatsoever.
For me, this is not my absolute favorite oolong, as I like one that is a bit heavier and more roast-y but it is a very good quality oolong that I will enjoy revisiting.
