Oriental Beauty Tea (also known as Pengfeng Tea, Formosa Oolong, Bai hao oolong, or Champagne Oolong) is a semi-fermented oolong tea originating from Taiwan. The main tea-producing regions include Shiding and Pinglin in New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, and Miaoli.
Oriental Beauty Tea is both delicious and healthy, making it a uniquely Taiwanese specialty tea. Its main harvest season runs from May to September, with the summer harvest around the Dragon Boat Festival yielding the highest quality. It is characterized by the harvesting of tea leaves bitten by the Jacobiasca formosana (green leaf hopper), crafted through a heavy fermentation process. The resulting tea features white tips and reddish leaves, offering a stunning appearance and a rich, honey-like aroma. Because it relies on insect bites, no pesticides can be used on the tea plants, making Oriental Beauty Tea a healthy and delightful beverage that has sparked a trend toward pesticide-free, healthy living in Taiwan’s tea market in recent years.
▲ The insect biting the tea leaf. Can you spot it?
Besides being flavorful and healthy, Oriental Beauty Tea has another distinct feature: it is difficult to produce. It requires harvesting leaves that have been bitten by insects, which are typically small and curled, making them hard to pick and necessitating careful hand-harvesting. Due to these production challenges, a professional tea picker can only harvest about 1.2 kg per day. Thanks to its exceptional quality and limited yield, Oriental Beauty Tea has become one of the most popular teas in Taiwan’s tea community and a favorite Taiwanese specialty for international visitors.