True Oriental Beauty

Jakub: Oriental beauties are from my experience one of the most "capricious" and "most complicated" teas for brewing. In the unending pool of samples on the market, it is pretty hard to find Oriental Beauty without obvious flaws and at the same time with an acceptable price tag appropriate to the tea quality. This is in our opinion one of the absolute jewels among Dong Fang Mei Ren Oolongs. Noble, classically processed, enchanting, perfumy with a beautiful note of muscatel. 

My recommendation for brewing this special tea (which will also work with other Oriental Beauties) is as follows. If you want to savour the soft and sweet perfumy tones, start with 75°C water. Raise the temperature for following infusions only very slowly. You can stay within the 75 - 85°C ratio for the whole session.

Or you can choose the opposite approach and start with 90 - 95°C. The infusions should be as short as possible. In the beginning, do not hesitate and strain immediately, afterwards inhale and exhale deeply once and then pour. In the later infusions, you can use boiling hot water. This way the tea will be thicker with more notes of honey, spice and boiled fruits.