To kick off Talking Tea's fourth season, we're at Té Company, an exquisite teahouse in New York's West Village, talking about an exquisite tea - the aptly named Oriental Beauty.

We chat with Elena Liao and Frederico Ribeiro, owners and founders of Té Company, about the origins of their teahouse, how they've created a cohesive whole between tea and food, and the unique ways they help their customers gain an understanding and knowledge of tea in an easily accessible way.

The uniqueness of Té Company is mirrored in Oriental Beauty, a remarkable Taiwanese tea with a signature sweetness. Its unique flavor and aroma are created in part by the tea plant's interaction with an insect, the tea jassid, and Elena chats with us about how this interaction, along with cultivar, climate, terroir, oxidation and roast, come together to create a truly amazing tea. Elena also gives us tips on how to identify the quality of an Oriental Beauty by looking at the dry leaf.

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Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken.

The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.

This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

Photo courtesy of Té Company.