The tea has natural fruity and honey-like aromas and produces a sweet-tasting beverage, bright reddish-orange in color, without any bitterness.

Dried leaves of high quality exhibit a pleasant aroma, with leaf coloration of dark purple and brown tones with white hairs.

[3] Similar action of jassids and thrips helps form the muscatel-like flavor of India's second flush Darjeeling tea to which dongfang meiren is sometimes compared.

In Taiwan, it is primarily grown in Hakka areas of the hilly northwestern part of the country at lower altitudes (300–800 m or 980–2,620 ft) between the mountains and the plains.

The moisture content of dongfang meiren is higher than that of high mountain oolongs so the withering process takes longer.

This longer withering period accelerates the hydrolysis and oxidation processes which help generate the typical sweet flavor and taste of this tea.

[citation needed] Dongfang meiren is usually marketed as 東方美人茶 (dōngfāng měirén chá) in Mandarin Chinese and translated as 'eastern or Oriental beauty tea' in English.

For example: It was once thought that a tea farmer in Beipu noticed that small green insects, later known as cicadas, had damaged the leaves of his newly picked spring crop.