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What kind of black tea is honey-scented black tea? why does it have honey flavor? describe how to make the honey flavor of black tea.

Published: 2026-04-03 Author: World Gafei

Last Updated: 2026/04/03, When it comes to the most distinctive and expensive tea in Taiwan, there is nothing more than Oriental Beauty Tea, which has a sweet taste of honey, thick ripe fruit, delicious and pleasant. In the past, Oriental Beauty Tea had many names, such as Pufeng Tea, and some people called it Bai Hao Oolong and five-color Tea, until Queen Elizabeth II of England greatly appreciated it and gave it the name "Oriental Beauty Tea".

When it comes to the most distinctive and expensive tea in Taiwan, there is nothing more than Oriental Beauty Tea, which has a sweet taste of honey, thick ripe fruit, delicious and pleasant. In the past, Oriental Beauty Tea had many names, such as Pufeng Tea at first, and some people called it Bai Hao Oolong and five-color Tea, until Queen Elizabeth II of England greatly praised it and gave it the name "Oriental Beauty Tea". It was only gradually that people began to call it Oriental Beauty Tea.

Oriental Beauty Tea belongs to oolong tea, and the very similar black tea, called Honey Black Tea, curls and stops the growth of its tea leaves due to the ingestion of a bug called "Little Green leafhopper" on its tea tree. at the same time, it produces a unique aromatic substance that can attract the natural enemies of the small green leafhopper. Honey-scented black tea is more aromatic and mellow after full fermentation and baking, bringing high aroma to black tea.

The unique sweetness of these two kinds of tea is due to the fact that the small green leafhopper bites the tea, prompting the tea to secrete and synthesize monoterpenes and alcohols, emitting a sweet honey flavor, attracting the natural enemies of the small green leafhopper to eat the small green leafhopper. This characteristic, which is pecked by the small green leafhopper, is called "salivation". The degree of salivation affects the sweet taste of tea, as well as its grade and price.

At first, when people did not know that saliva would bring sweetness to the tea, a tea farmer took the tea bitten by the little green leafhopper and thought it was finished, while trying to sell it. As a result, all the people who had drunk it said it was too delicious, so his tea sold well. When he returned to his hometown, no one believed him. They all said that he was inflating the wind, which means boasting and lying in Tiannan language.

In 1999, the tea improvement field in Taitong branch of the "small green leafhopper harm tea cyanine manufacturing experiment", developed honey fragrant tea products, and began to promote in Huadong region, the salivation effect of small green leafhopper can increase the content of sugar and alcohol in tea was finally proved. Originally, after the rise of Gaoshan tea in Taiwan, oolong tea in Huadong was dealt a heavy blow, coupled with the infiltration of Chinese and Vietnamese tea into the domestic market, the entire local industry was moribund, and the emergence of honey-scented tea was like a long drought, bringing vitality to local tea farmers.

Small green leafhoppers like natural and organic tea gardens best. It is not easy to attract small green leafhoppers. They are very fragile and sensitive. They need tea gardens to be very natural and organic before they can appear. As a result, tea farmers began to establish a more environmentally friendly and scientific way of growing, no longer using pesticides, using natural organic fertilizer as much as possible, and so on. Let the little green leafhopper come back slowly.

In general, traditional black tea attaches importance to taste and does not pay attention to aroma. In view of the lack of black tea, the Taitung branch of the tea industry improvement field uses the tea cyanine raw materials absorbed by the small green leafhopper to develop "honey-fragrant black tea". In addition to paying attention to the taste of black tea, but also to improve its elegant flavor quality, this tea is suitable for both cold and hot drinks, especially cold drinks, honey fragrance is more mellow.

The tea varieties used in Mixiang black tea are: Daye Oolong, Qingxin Oolong, Taicha 12, Taicha 13, Qingxin Citrus. The producing areas are distributed in Huadong area of Baodao, Taiwan, Pinglin, Nantou, Taichung and Chiayi, especially in Wuhe Village, Ruisui Township, Hualien County. The Jilin Tea Garden in Wuhe Township, Ruixiang, Hualien, is the largest producing area of honey-scented black tea in Taiwan. Although Hualien Mizuho is the largest producing area of honey-scented black tea, compared with ordinary black tea, honey-scented black tea is a rare tea variety, so its output will be relatively precious.

Generally, summer is the tea-producing season of honey-scented black tea. The aroma of honey-scented black tea is mainly honey, fruit and sweet-scented osmanthus, sweet and smooth in the mouth, not astringent for a long time. The dried tea is striped or hemispherical, the color is black and crimped, and the color of the tea is deep in amber and clear and bright.

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