Braggart's Tea (Spring Eastern Beauty)

If you ever found yourself wondering how epic it'd be if one of the core Hakka families responsible for putting the famous bug-bitten, heavier oxidized, summer-harvested gourmet 東方美人 Dong Fang Mei Ren ("Eastern Beauty") oolong style on the map also made a delightful spring harvested ball-rolled version that happens to be lighter on the wallet... well, you came to the right place. And while it is true that most of the honey flavor-aroma inducing action on the part of the tea plant responding to its own herbivory by the legendary jassid 浮塵子 Fuchenzi takes place in the heat of summer, this little 3-5mm green leafhopper actually hangs around most times of the year on the subtropical Formosa island, especially at lower elevations. This includes the springtime, giving us a lighter dusting of classic Eastern Beauty honey flavor to complement the top notch processing of the Gu family. Letting it rest a few years has lent a lovely, sultry aroma and mellowness to this tea. Expect a rich, sweet, nutty, roasty broth reminiscent of the thick honeyed delicacy that is Dong Fang Mei Ren. Always in the best interests of tea farmers to utilize each season's flushes — either by crafting off-season iterations of their primary production or branching out into other styles during these times — Eastern Beauty producers like the Gu family are in the rare position of having the favorable springtime as their off-season for experimental productions. This family has produced this ball-rolled iteration since 2008 and those who branch out to give it a try won't be let down. The 古 Gu family of Beipu represents an unbroken 5 generation line of Dong Fang Mei Ren craft, now in the hands award-decorated Rivers & Lakes partner 古亦平 Gu Yi-Ping, considered one of Taiwan's youngest master tea makers. Mature natural gardens outside of Beipu managed by the Gu family. While there are other prominent DFMR families still around, the Gu family may be the oldest to continue to farm, produce, as well as sell their tea, intimately involved in each step. "Braggart's Tea" is a translation from 膨風茶 Peng Feng Cha, an old reference back to the 1930s when one Hakka man of Beipu managed to sell his bug-bitten tea for unheard of sums, proceeding to then brag to his skeptical neighbors. Read more on the elaborate production of Eastern Beauty from the ground up here, from the bug-bite induced honeyed aromatics to the advanced processing involved after harvesting, as well as to its aging potential.