🍯💎 Bug-bitten Oolong Reveal

hello friends,

something good happened. no... something GREAT happened.

TL;DR: a rare visit from the tea jassids (bugs that are very good) has transformed (nibbled on) some of our Alishan qingxin winter harvest crop resulting in a green oolong that has a delightful & unusual honey-scented aroma.

You’ll love it 🤤

If this sounds all familiar... you're right! These are the same jassids that nibble on the tea leaves that produce both oriental beauty and gui fei oolongs. They roam around the island noshing on tasty tea plants, but don't usually make their way this high up into the mountains. However once every few years it happens and well, the resulting tea is truly something special!

Let's double-click  

Our Bug-bitten Oolong is a winter harvest green oolong hailing from our farm on Alishan.  To create this tea, a swarm of tea jassids, also commonly called leafhoppers, made their way to our of qingxin oolong garden and attacked a large amount of the plants.  In other words, these leafhoppers were feasting on our tea leaves.

🦗 When the tea plants were attacked, they threw up a line of defense by producing a compound to repel the jassids. This compound is precisely what gives the tea it's unique honeyed aroma and flavor!

️✌️ It's important to note that the leaves are hand harvested-- it's a very slow process as we only collect leaves that have been bitten by the jassids. As you might expect, yield is tremendously lower than a regular harvest and much more labor intensive. We are so thankful we were able to snatch this small batch to enjoy!

🌱 Tea jassids only come to organic gardens, because yuck who wants to eat chemicals!

️🕰️ We can't predict when the jassids will arrive, only that so far we've seen them make their way high up into the mountains every 2-3 years.

✨ Taiwan is also home to a few other varieties of bug bitten teas that tend to be grown at lower elevations. The most famous of which is the delicious oriental beauty tea (東方美人). Who knows, maybe we'll add more bug-bitten teas to the line-up in the future!

this is an extremely limited batch release.

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What's next? Spring harvest is still a few months away -- pending weather, harvest usually begins in mid-late April and we can hope to have the teas in hand by the end of May.

In the meantime, we have a really strong collection of delicious oolongs for you to enjoy!
Sam