We recently had the rare opportunity to attend a tea tasting of the top eleven award-winning teas of the summer 2026 Hsinchu County Oriental Beauty Tea Competition in Taiwan. The host thoughtfully chose to start off the event by serving an exceptional batch of Oriental Beauty that only achieved the lowest award in the competition. His basic point was that each batch of tea should be considered on its own, not based on its score. And after the cupping of the top eleven prize winning teas, we were served a Top Award Category tea —ranking within the top 2% of all entries. This allowed us to experience two batches of competition grade Oriental Beauty brewed gongfu style in addition to the tea cupping. It was truly an impressive line up of some of the best quality Oriental Beauty of 2026 so far (the winter competition is next month). There were only 12 spaces available, and we felt privileged to attend. The host shared a wealth of information and insight into this year's Oriental Beauty Tea production and the regional as well as national competitions held exclusively for this most precious gem among all of Taiwan's world-class specialty teas.
Oriental Beauty is considered to be Taiwan's most precious gem of teas simply because there is so little of it. The amount of proper Oriental Beauty Tea that is produced seasonally is a tiny fraction of the volume of all other tea types made on Taiwan. There are two main reasons for its scarcity. First, as seen in the photo above (a phone shot of the slide presentation at the event), the leaves must be picked when they are still only leaf buds and very immature leaves. Second, these leaf buds must be bug bitten in order to make a proper Oriental Beauty Tea. If the leaves have not been bitten by the Green Leafhopper, they will not produce a flavor profile that qualifies as an authentic Oriental Beauty.
There is a considerable amount of tea produced in the Oriental Tea producing region that is marketed as Oriental Beauty — based on the premise that the leaves were produced in this region and were processed using Oriental Beauty Tea making methods, but it doesn't taste like a proper Oriental Beauty. It is more akin to a Black Tea made with immature leaf material. It just doesn't qualify as Oriental Beauty, however, and this was our point of contention when we decided it was not possible for us to represent this tea type. The actual amount of tea leaves that are sufficiently bug bitten, and must be harvested in a very timely manner to maintain that magic composition, make it so exclusive that it is not feasible for us to consistently source significant quantities of quality Oriental Beauty. Not to mention that the price of a quality Oriental Beauty exceeds all other Taiwanese tea types by multiples. Eco-Cha's mission is to sustainably represent the specialty Taiwanese tea industry and culture. Oriental Beauty is in a provincial class of its own, and frankly has no need for our help in promoting it! It's Taiwan's most precious gem of tea, after all!
Regardless of how rare and precious this tea is, the people who make it are still Taiwanese, and that means readily accessible and very friendly. We just happened to take a seat next to Mr. Han, a tea farmer from Miaoli County who has earned the title "Miaoli Tea King". He has an unmatched record of winning champion prize awards for his Oriental Beauty Tea. Even if we are not a vendor of this precious tea, we still want to understand it as much as possible. So we fully intend to visit Mr. Han in his home and learn all we can from his expertise!
When the owner and host of Positive Thought Tea Studio, Mr. Lin invited us to this event, we immediately felt that the time had finally come to visit his tea space in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. We have met Mr. Lin in the tea factory of our source of Alishan teas several times in recent years, where he was making his own boutique batches of tea. Mr. Lin himself is an anomaly in the local industry and a true artist in his embodiment of tea culture. We look forward to learning his story more fully so that we can feature a blogpost about his life and work exclusively. For now, we can say that he has a wealth of knowledge to share, while being very simple and humble in his communication. Super happy to have met this guy, and to finally have a chance to visit his tea studio!
Watch our Youtube short to get a glimpse of the vibe at the event.
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