★★★★☆
I tried this in search of oolong teas that were not too green. This has a great medium to light oolong taste, similar to formosa oolong, but with more flavor. I would purchase again.
This Taiwan tea, also called Fancy Formosa Silver Tip or Oriental Beauty, is one of the world's most prized oolongs. More heavily oxidized, yielding luxurious floral, peach-pit fragrance. Incredibly sweet and lush, delicate warm spicy undertone.
Customers use these reviews to describe their experience with Formosa Bai Hao, including flavor, aroma, preparation preferences, strength, and how the tea fits into daily routines. Browse the full review history page by page to compare tasting notes, steeping tips, and favorite ways to enjoy this tea.
I tried this in search of oolong teas that were not too green. This has a great medium to light oolong taste, similar to formosa oolong, but with more flavor. I would purchase again.
I love oolongs and this one did not disappoint. To me it's a little less toasty than other oolongs and it stays nice no matter how long I steep it.
This tea was good, however, it is not and never will be my go-to. I enjoyed the uniqueness but it was slightly bland for my taste buds.
This was a great choice. I don’t know if I will buy it again though
As a strong oolong flavor that's great hot. Can be used more than once.
surprisingly light and I'd call it floral all in all pretty good
My go-to oolong for when I'm craving something milder than my Dancong Aria. All the wonderfully sweet and stone fruit flavors, without the mineral undertones. This is one of the few teas I make sure to stock up on.
This is my latest favorite! Each new tea seems to be better than the last one. I waited until I had tried this one multiple times to be sure the taste was as good each time and it only seemed to improve. It was even better than black dragon pearls, another favorite. I love so many of the white and black teas it gets harder and harder to choose which one to make. I am still learning about teas and cannot comment on notes or other specific terms, but this tea is great, no bitterness, and it doesn't need anything added to make the taste fantastic. I recommend it to anyone and everyone.
I had a sample of this in the CommuniTea and loved it. It’s the first time I bought a tea right away after sampling it. It’s smooth and aromatic with no bitterness at all. Not so delicate that I can’t taste it. I’m still learning about teas but this will be on my favorite list for a long time!
Very good mellow oolong tea. I have found you can steep them a couple of times and still are good.
I keep buying this one
Awesome tea. Fragrant and tasteful. I did try to brew it at 195, 200,205, and 210F. I think 210 is the best temperature to brew this. 5grams for a cup of tea and it tastes good for the second brew too. This could be an affordable substitute for Hsinchu oriental beauty.
This tea reminds me of tea I’ve had in Chinese restaurants. It is good, but I like the Golden Flower and Wuyi Da Hong Pao better.
If you like Smokey flavors you might like this. It was too Smokey for me but my husband really enjoyed it.
I got a sample, and I think I will definitely be buying more.
This was a really nice oolong. I enjoyed it both hot and iced (it was a hot day, so after a few sips, I poured it over ice and enjoyed the rest that way). It resteeps well, also. Just a very smooth, drinkable brew. I would definitely drink this again.
This is my favorite oolong that is more than on the oxidized side of oolongs. Wonderful aroma and flavor. Good for a morning when you don't want black tea but still need a nice dose of caffeine.
Enjoyed this Tea. Very flavorful and withstood multiple steeps. Would order this one again
I didn't see the two teaspoons per cup reccommendation but I can honestly say it works well at half that. It's much sweeter than such a highly oxidized oolong would suggest.
I have to say, not one of my favorites. Maybe I just did not sweeten it enough. It is a subtle and earthy taste. Very delicate and floral, which I appreciate it. Though it does not rank as one of my top teas, it is still a satisfying one to taste.
A smooth, nutty and warm-tasting tea that tastes faintly of raisins and dried fruits, making for a really complicated brew to mull over slowly.
This is the best oolong I've ever tasted. I enjoyed without any sweetener. And it resteeped well (4x), too.
4/26/21: Interesting flavor, difficult to describe. Pretty good oolong, but very different from what I’m used to. I saw that a hot rinse might be in order, so I might have to try that next time and see the effect.
7/8/21 Update: I think the rinse helped even if I like several other oolongs better
I have sincerely enjoyed this tea! Its a very nice oolong, almost reminded me of a nice breakfast tea <3
There is a woody & floral aroma wafting up from the CommuniTea packet - reminds me of a walk through a wildflower patch in the middle of the woods. This steeps into a light golden elixir. When hot, it tastes sweet - like raisins and flowers. The astringency is very mild, and the wonderful sweetness of this tea means no other sweetener is needed. This full bodied tea is also delicious when chilled. This is truly a unique oolong. ( 2 mins @ 190ºF).
This tea is absolutely lovely!!! It was smooth nutty and delicious. I tried it plain hot, hot with honey, hot with cream, and room temp with honey and cream, it was delightful every way. Hope I can get a few more steeps yum!!
Great tea reminiscent of the Yunnan Golden curls or a lightly steeped Yunnan Gold. Seems to have a unique flavor that is characteristic to these yellow / gold teas.
2021 CommuniTEA update: The packet opened to reveal curled earthy scented oolong tea leaves. Steeping for 4 minutes at 195°F created an amber brown oolong tea. The first sip is a full-bodied flavorful experience. Malty and sweet overtones meld into a light almost spiced muscatel flavor and then end with a slight floral element in the dry finish. A crisp and clean malty flavor is left lingering alongside some mild astringency. This is really a multi-layered complex tea. There is a slight flavor reminiscent of unsalted nutty pistachio husk that arises when this tea is slurped appropriately. The tea tree's biological response to bugs nibbling on the leaves really must have added a lot of these complex layers! Overall this is an excellent Oolong with a lot going on.
It is almost a shock when CommunTea presents you with a plain tea. Not that this tea is plain in any way beyond being a single ingredient. Smooth and light but with a hint of tannin followed by a creamy, buttery finish. Tried this back to back with the Formosa fancy bai hao and found that I actually preferred this version today as the presence of tannin was a better fit to sip while watching the rain poor down outside.
Perhaps it is because I have (so far) uneducated taste buds. I may have used too hot water for the first steep- hard to judge when using tap water- so I let it cool a bit after the first few sips. It did taste somewhat better.
I tried a second brewing, but it still left a rather unpleasant aftertaste. Everybody else seems to like it! I don’t feel very well tonight, so that may be affecting my taste buds. I am trying White Symphony right now and that doesn’t taste very good to me tonight. Oh well, maybe tomorrow…
Great oolong! I have never been much of an oolong fan, but have found a couple great ones through communitTea. This was such a great tea to have on a rainy day. Comforting, complex, yet simple. No bitterness and just a slightly dry finish. Flavors are so difficult to describe because they change with each sip and steep. Woodsy, mushroom, stone fruit, honey, malty, nutty, etc. Added a touch of honey to first steep to tone down the woodsy and bring the fruit forward. I was rewarded with a great fruity, malty, and nutty cup of tea. 2nd and 3rd steep were my favorite and did not need anything sweet added. I was even able to get a fourth steep. Obviously it was weaker, but still drinkable. 190º for 3 mins on first steep and 2 mins for the rest. Enjoy! This is worth a try.
Wow this is a good tea! A little malty, a little sweet, so many subtleties. Perfect on my first steep, and I added a touch of sugar on the third! SO GOOD.
I thought I just didn’t like oolong tea. Today’s communitea packet has changed my mind. It had a light flavor and held up through three steepings. It has been one of my favorite teas that I have had recently.
This oolong is floral and fragrant. Multiple layers of taste are revealed with slow sips. Drinking it caused me to slow down and appreciate this delicate oolong. Enjoyed this as part of the Communitea and it's going on my wishlist.
When I took my first sip of this tea, my eyes widened and I started back a little bit. I rolled it around in my mouth: what does this taste like? What am I tasting?
First: figs. Definitely figs. Then raisins. Then toasted nuts, maybe? Then something earthy, like mushrooms. Chaga, more specifically.
'Why does this taste so familiar?' Oh. I see its other name is Oriental Beauty! Like the Hsinchu Oriental Beauty I recently tried for the first time? Which tasted similar in many ways?
This tea might be slightly more astringent than the Hsinchu, and has that lovely nutty flavor I didn't get in the Hsinchu, but definitely occupies the same space. It is an entire journey unto itself, and I look forward to taking this trip again in the future.
What a beautiful and delicate, delicious tea in today's CommuniTea.
One of my favorite oolongs. So silky smooth. Hints of floral and stone fruit, with a touch of earthy mineral. No bitterness at all, in fact it has a sweetness to it like honeysuckle. So many layers of flavor to explore and you can get a good number of infusions from it. So nice for when you just want a simple cup of tea to sit and slowly enjoy. 190° for 1.5 minutes.
Great tea, enjoy it smooth taste, drink it with my daughter, we both like it.
Lovely with a fruity and floral flavor. Nice and perfect for summer or spring.
This smells AMAZING - like a sweet, bubbly floral. The flavor is sweet, smooth, mellow and floral (in a honeysuckle or orange blossom kind of way). This is unlike anything I have ever had and I love it.
This tea is a contradiction in flavors in the best way. I want to say it’s buttery on one sip, and the next turns almost floral. But all of these descriptions are approximate because this tea is really its own flavor without needing to borrow descriptions from others tastes. It has a smooth mouthfeel end left me soothed and equal parts satisfied and wanting more at the end of my cup. A testament to what oolong can and should be!
Delicious oolong. Very smooth and rich with a velvety mouthfeel. Naturally sweet and a little nutty and earthy.
This tea was such a pleasant surprise. Quite a bit more complex than what I thought it would be. Very malty and smooth. No bitterness noted. definitely am adding this to my wish list for a future purchase.
Mmmmmmmmmmm. Oh yeah. This is one of the best oolongs I’ve tried. The leaves are beautiful to behold. The cup is a light brown and the scent is rich with fruit notes and a smidge of minerality. The taste is creamy and nutty with some light mineral notes and stone fruit flavors in the back of the sip. I’m glad this one is a multiple steeper because LORD it is delicious and you want to wring every last bit out of those leaves. It’s expensive, but worth it. Happy Sipping!
Buttery, no bitterness , tastes strong, very very good.
One of the oolong I have had.
Some oolongs taste like green tea and some like black. This one is somewhere in the middle. It tasted mostly like black to me with a hint of green tea. I prefer oolongs that taste more like black teas. This one is just ok to me.
Maybe this tea was too subtle for me—I didn’t get much flavor at all.
Lush with a warm undertone, this tea delivers on a smooth taste. Withstands multiple steeps without a loss of color or flavor.
Today I wanted to just slow down and enjoy my tea. My life has been so topsy-turvy lately, and I need to get back to my normalcy.
I am glad I waited to drink this tea this morning so that I could just sit back and enjoy.
One of the benefits of making your tea in a gaiwain, and taking the time to go through the steps of the Gongfu Cha Process is it makes you slow down and really enjoy the flavors of the tea.
I found the flavors of this tea very interesting. Each sip brought a different sensation to my mouth and tongue.
I find it very hard to describe the flavors of this tea as there were so many different flavors upon each sip. I understand why it is called the Champagne of oolongs. The after-taste and feel is very much like drinking champagne.
As for the tea, my first sip was very woodsy. To the point, I wondered if I picked up flavor from my tongs. But then I tasted a bit of floral, some nutty, and even some fruitiness. I was experiencing so many flavors with each sip, yet not muddled. Each flavor stood out on its own. I did start to consider I was overthinking this tea. How could a tea have such a wonderful experience with so many flavors? So, I headed over to the comments to see what everyone else was saying. Only to find others mention all of the flavors I was experiencing.
If you decide to try this tea, I truly hope you consider sitting back and sipping this tea with no distractions and just enjoy each sip of wonder.
What a lovely tea today in my CommuniTea box! Smooth...earthy...flavorful! Nothing needs to be added...it's wonderful by itself.
Smooth and toasty, with a distinctive cinnamony warmth. It's so good.
I don't usually like Oolong, but it is very smooth flavor and it isn't at all astringent. I would say there is a background hint if floral/fruit. I steeped this tea for 2 minutes at 190F.