Dong Fang Mei Ren

Dong Fang Mei Ren — oriental beauty — is one of the most remarkable teas in the world, because it cannot be made without an insect. In the heat of a Taiwanese summer, the tiny tea leafhopper (Jacobiasén) feeds on the young leaves; the bitten bush defends itself with aromatic compounds, and those compounds, carried through a heavy oxidation, become an extraordinary natural honey-and-muscat fragrance.

Because the leafhopper only thrives without pesticides, the tea is necessarily clean-grown, and because the bug decides the harvest, no two seasons are quite alike. The finished leaf is multicoloured — white tip, brown, green and red — and heavily oxidised, closer to a red tea than most oolongs.

In the cup

Brew a little cooler than most oolongs, around 80–90 °C, to keep the delicate sweetness. The cup is soft and luscious — honey, ripe peach and muscat grape over a smooth, oxidised body — with a gentle floral lift. It needs no roast and no sugar; the leafhopper has already done the sweetening.