Asian Beauty Oolong from Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company – Tea Review

I’m still on the quest for an Oriental Beauty oolong that knocks my boots off and so far it has been a delicious tea quest!

Today’s oolong is Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company’s Asian Beauty Oolong. This Taiwanese oolong is from XinZhu (North Central Taiwan) harvested the Summer of 2013.

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Dry Leaf

Asian Beauty Oolong’s tea leaves has a soft roasty scent. As with most Asian Beauty oolongs, the dry leaf is gorgeous. Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company’s Asian Beauty Oolong looks like a rainbow of tea with silver tipped, gold accented, reddish brown and dark leaves.

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Steeping Instructions

I decided to steep this Asian Beauty Oolong gongfu style in a gaiwan. I used 200F water and a quick rinse.

When I did the rinse, wow super fragrant! This is going to be an awesome oolong session!

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Tasting of Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company’s Asian Beauty Oolong

First Infusion: I started with a 30 second infusion.  Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company’s Asian Beauty Oolong came out a beautiful golden cup of tea that smells roasty and peachy.

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First sip, Asian Beauty Oolong is so soft! There is a thick silky texture with a lovely floral peach taste. First steepings are always light but this one feels like a nice warm up snuggle.

Second, Third, and Fourth Infusion: Asian Beauty Oolong is a soft, thick peach blanket of honey suckle flowers but now has a woodsy cinnamon finish. The spice adds a nice complexity to the tea but my favorite part is the floral after taste that lingers, providing a refreshing feeling. Each infusion getting sweeter and peachy. I’d say the floral level is on a light to moderate level, 3/10 on the Floral Meter. All the notes are delicate as if carried on a fluffy cloud.

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Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Infusion: The best steepings though I was battling steep times, so all these are each adding 10, 15 and 30 seconds to the previous steep time. The teas notes have melded together creating a nice smoothness. Asian Beauty Oolong is sweet honeysuckle floral with a woodsy earth depth, kind of bready with a long floral after taste. After each sip I’m getting a little dryness in the back of the teeth, 1/10 on the Astringency Meter, that sticks that peachy longer.

Eighth and Ninth Infusion:  Asian Beauty Oolong is now very light and sweet. With each infusion is getting dryer topping at a 5/10 drying the tongue and roof of mouth.

After my tea session I checked out the leaves. Nice looking tea leaf with milk chocolate and red tipped colored leaf and dainty.

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Most look in perfect shape with little tears or holes.

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Comments

With all the Asian/Oriental Beauty Oolongs I’ve tried, it seems like there is a big range of flavors. I’ve had ones that were more woodsy, more peachy, less floral, more dry. Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company’s Asian Beauty Oolong is a lighter, more delicate and sweeter variety. This Asian Beauty Oolong is for someone looking for something more dainty, sweet and floral – indeed a sophisticated feel of a tea to sip on a early Autumn afternoon.

Beautiful Taiwan Tea Company also sells sample sizes so you can test drive their teas. With a low free shipping threshold of $15 (USA shipping), it is easy to sneak in an order an try a bunch of high quality teas. So many oolongs!

(tea provided for review)

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