Bai Hao Wu Long白毫乌龙

Bai Hao Wu Long is a bug-bitten oolong from Hsinchu and Miaoli, Taiwan. Brew it at 85°C with 5g of leaf per 100ml of water; expect up to 8 short infusions in a small gaiwan or teapot. No rinse needed.

Tasting notes

Nothing else in the oolong cabinet smells like Bai Hao. The dry leaf is multicolored — silver tips, brown, green, red — and the aroma is already doing muscatel and ripe stonefruit before water touches it. In the cup: amber-red liquor, a body that feels almost like a late-harvest Riesling, honey and peach up front, then a cool camphor drift across the back of the throat. The magic is chemistry. Leafhoppers (Jacobiasca formosana) bite the summer leaves, the plant panics, and the defensive terpenes it produces are what you're tasting. Brew this at 95°C and you kill exactly that — the cup turns flat and generic. Keep it at 85°C, no rinse (you'd pour the best part down the drain), and the heavily oxidized leaves extract fast, so watch steep one closely. Fades around infusion seven. Weirdly forgiving otherwise, given the price tag.

Flavor profile

Taiwan's most oxidized oolong — the leafhopper bites trigger defensive terpene production that creates a unique muscatel, honey, and resin character impossible to achieve through processing alone. The liquor is amber-red with a sweet, wine-like body. Musky and fermented with ripe peach, citrus peel, and a long camphor finish. No astringency when brewed properly.

Terroir

Low to mid elevation, subtropical, requires leafhopper (Jacobiasca formosana) activity

Cultivar: Qing Xin Da Mao

Brewing

1. Steep 1: 25 seconds
2. Steep 2: 20 seconds
3. Steep 3: 20 seconds
4. Steep 4: 25 seconds
5. Steep 5: 30 seconds
6. Steep 6: 40 seconds
7. Steep 7: 50 seconds
8. Steep 8: 60 seconds

Lower temperature (85C) is critical — hot water destroys the delicate terpene aromatics that make this tea special. No rinse needed. The heavy oxidation means the leaves are already open and extract quickly. Some brewers go as low as 80C.

Aroma & taste

Processing

• leafhopper-bitten
• heavily withered
• heavily oxidized
• unroasted

Sources

• https://meileaf.com/tea/eastern-beauty-oolong/
• https://meileaf.com/article/appreciating-terpenes-in-bai-hao-oolong/
• https://teadb.org/gui-fei-mei-ren/
• https://www.teaforum.org/viewtopic.php?t=1933