Thai company
Tea-side sent me a Dong Fang Mei Ren which is marked #AAA. I don't know what that means, but if I were to get to grade it, like a school paper AAA sounds about right! This Dong Fang Mei Ren, or as I have more often known it to be called, 'Oriental Beauty' is my favorite kind of Oolong tea. My favorite kind of tea
period. I would have no problem, once my huge supply of teas to taste come to an end, in focusing and drinking nothing but different kinds of Oriental Beauty for the rest of my days. I have had some amazing ones, and some disappointing ones, and for me to be disappointed is a rare thing since my tea drinking is so relatively new. However, I
have had a
lot of OB's, and was happy enough to realize when tasting a poor one, that I
could recognize it as a bad example! You, of course haven't heard about that tea, or others I disliked because I am here to write about things that I liked. And this Dong Fang Mei Ren is in the top three best I have had.
It is different in some pretty neat and subtle ways compared to other OB's I have had. My first thought when smelling the leaves in the hot gaiwan before first rinse were not the usual floral notes but buttered vegetables and bread! That was new and different!
Love this tea and now I want to try even more of this sort of Oolong offering from Tea-Side! I decided to brew the first few steeps in a less than gongfu fashion. I used less leaf at 3.5 grams in a larger amount of water, a 160ml gaiwan and I let it steep 1 minute at 205f. I will go back and try my usual parameters but I have enjoyed this brewing style the last few days and thought this tea would brew well under those parameters, which it most certainly did.
Gorgeous leaves, carefully packed and pretty as you would expect a good Oriental Beauty to be, this is my kind of session. Pure and perfect with each consecutive steep!
