Eastern Beauty uses leaves picked in summer, when insect damage may consume a certain part of the tea crop. But this has unanticipated effects: the flavor becomes more subtle, and the leaves naturally oxidize prior to being processed into tea. The leaves themselves have jigsaw shapes, but the eventual tea is light copper in hue.
Subtlety is the keynote here. Don’t look for rich, overly tannic tea. What’s left of the insect-nibbled tea leaves is smooth and very easy to drink; this tea is delicately sweet. Eastern Beauty is best complemented by biscuits or some other light edible to contrast with the tea’s refined character. On the other hand, this tea is a little too subtle to drink just by itself.
Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C
4 min, 15 sec
