Tea Tuesday: Oriental Beauty

I'm not really a coffee person. I prefer tea, and I know a lot of fellow writers love tea, too. But have you ever wanted to break out of the Early Grey or English Breakfast norm and try something new? Well, let me help you find some cool new teas! If you need a little hot and flavorful boost to help you reach your writing goal or you're just a lover of tea or you'd like to try some tea but aren't fond of the stereotypical types, these Tea Tuesday posts are for you.

This weeks tea is ... 

*drum roll*

Oriental Beauty

How I found it: A few months ago Tea Ave, a Canadian tea company specializing in all natural Taiwanese oolongs, sent me free samples of my choice of three oolong teas plus special oolong tea cups and an oak tray in honor of their grand opening for my review. They were so generous and the teas were scrumptious. Loved them! You can check out the reviews for the teas on their respective links (Rose Oolong, Magnolia Oolong, Ginger Lily Oolong). After this awesome first impression, I had to purchase some oolong from them at least once. They are a bit pricey so I had to wait until they had their free shipping sale this past month, but now I am back with four marvelous blends: Alishan Jin Xuan Oolong, Osmanthus Oolong, Dong Ding Oolong, and Oriental Beauty!

The Tea: For these reviews since I'm not judging them based on their similarity to a respective character I'm going to give the teas' product descriptions. Here we go:

Go ahead, search the world—you won’t find another tea quite like Oriental Beauty, the luxurious, highly prized oolong tea so exquisite that it made its way from Taiwan to Queen Elizabeth II, who gave it its name. Processed entirely by hand, Oriental Beauty is produced only once a year, during summer. Our Oriental Beauty grows in the Ping Ling area of Northern Taiwan, known for its breathtaking scenery. The perpetual mild climate and rolling fog makes the growing environment truly unique.


Tea leaves are a gorgeous (if we do say so ourselves) mix of green, white, yellow, red, and brown—the colors of nature itself. Sixty percent oxidized, the flavor is one of a kind, both strong and mellow, with a fruity taste and subtle honeyed notes. Its naturally sweet taste is invigorating, like stepping into the wild. Oriental Beauty turns amber-red when infused.

This tea is starkly different than other oolongs I've been reviewing. Firstly, in appearance the tea itself is brown as opposed to green. Unlike the other oolongs, it has nature of a black tea than a green or white with a heavier, darker flavor. It reminds me a bit of assam melody but with the described honey flavor and very unique though I didn't taste much of the fruit.

Serving Recommendations: The directions said to steep it for one minute, but I had to steep it for at least four to get a good flavor. I may steep it in even longer next time. I added sugar as well.

How much is it and where can you get it? You can purchase all of Tea Ave's teas on their website with a flat rate of $15 for shipping. This particular tea is $11.75 USD or 25 grams or 0.88 oz. The tea can be re-steeped multiple times so you can get at least ten servings from this bag if not more. The teas are very high quality and imported so that accounts for the price

So how good is it? I really enjoyed this tea. It's tasty and unique. Four stars!

Have you tried this tea? What did you think of it?

If you liked this post, come back every Saturday for more writing advice, character interviews, book reviews and more! On Sundays I have Soundtrack Sundays where I post a new score piece, Tuesdays are Tea Tuesdays with tea reviews, Wednesdays I have Wonderful Word Wednesdays where I post a new vocabulary word, and Fridays are Fan Fridays where I post tags and other goodies. To help support my dream to be an author follow this blog, like me on Facebook, watch me on deviantART, and follow me on Pinterest and Twitter. If you want to know more about my books check out them out here. Thank you! :)

Click here for last week's tea!