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Ten Ren Oriental Beauty

I have often bought the Oriental Beauty tea from the Ten Ren store in Rockville, MD. Although their catalogue lists several grades available as loose tea, the store only stocks one, and I like it. It's got a very spicy sort of salicylate odor to it, and that comes out in the cup. Big black, irregularly-shaped leaves.

BUT, this time rather than go to the Ten Ren store, I picked up some pre-packaged Oriental Beauty tea at the nearby Maxim Market. It's in a white can holding 30g, with a painting of some flowers on a rock and the Ten Ren Logo on the front.

On the back it says "Oriental Beauty Tea is selected from off spring leaves of tea plant and is made with two leaves one sprout to create the precarious honey taste. The name 'Oriental Beauty' is concluded from the radiant shape of tea leaves, the vibrant orange tea color, the mellow sweet taste, and fruitiful fragrant." No mention of insects at all.

Anyway... this tea is marked "exp: 2020218" on the bottom so it seems to be fresh, I would think. But it is totally, totally different than the regular Ten Ren OB from the store. It's less tannic and it is totally without the spicy odor. It's like drinking a mid-grade tikyanyin. It's not offensive, and the leaves are the right shape, but this is not the OB that I have known and loved. What is up?

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey
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Not to mention that the Chinese for Oriental Beauty (Dongfang Meiren) specifically refers to a beautiful *woman*.

Huh? You mean, because they say it has nearly 10 years of shelf life remaining it must have been manufactured very recently? That's kind of optimistic.

/Lew

Reply to
Lewis Perin

Good point.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

Here is a picture of my OB:

formatting link

I couldnt get a good picture of the color. The top dry leaf is white bud and dark leaf. The bottom wet leaf shows two leaf and a bud with faded greenish brown color.

I wouldnt disagree with the packaged TenRen description. I have a previous post comparing it to Darjeeling. It was sold in the US as a Darjeeling prior to WWII. The story goes the same aphid eats both leaving it saliva behind for similar taste. Also from a previous post since the Taiwan draught of the mid nineties any bug eaten tea is sold as OB. One tea shoppe in town sells some Taiwan green rolled nuggets as OB.

I prefer Taiwan TenRen retail over their exports. Every time I am in SF Chinatown I walk in and out of their store without buying anything. I cant get anybody to give me the time of day.

Jim

Reply to
Space Cowboy

I very much doubt it's the bug saliva. There was a Japanese study - sorry, I don't have a citation handy - in which they mechanically perforated tea leaves and got the characteristic OB aroma compounds as a result.

/Lew

Reply to
Lewis Perin

"The story goes". Also I dont see any evidence of chomp marks. I hate to think of what else could be left behind. I have seen a picture of the so called aphid. I have it in a picture archive somewhere. I lost my link. It was a Chinese page. I couldnt get it to pop up with Google. One last note on the picture. The dry leaf is wilted not twisted.

Jim

...eaten by a bug...

Reply to
Space Cowboy

In article , snipped-for-privacy@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote: [snip] >

my understanding of Oriental Beauty from Taiwan is it's from spring buds + insect bites

(i'm not sure if it's _always_ true for all varieties of OB tho)  regards,

Pam's Ode to Spammers & Telemarketers

May all spammers & telemarketers die an agonizing death; have no burial places; their souls be chased by demons in Gehenna from one room to another for 1000 years while listening to Bartok microcosmos + Scriabin playing together.

Reply to
Dr. Curmudgon Gee

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