Pictures are worth a thousand words

The Taste of High Mountain

Today it was at 1700 meters in a blinding fog on a narrow road with tea harvesters at 80 degree slants, tasting the San Lin She High Mountain Oolong with its mountain spring water. Need I say more? next year, I am going to lead an expedition and do a tour. Finally, after all these years, the chances of falling off the mountain may be offset by the sheer worthiness of experiencing these High Mountain Oolongs at their source.

The Truth about Taiwan Beauty

I was in Miaoli today, the mid upper part of Taiwan, where Taiwan Beauty bushes are indigenous to. Clever merchants from Hsinchu would come and buy the crops from the poor farmers and then enter competitions and claim that Taiwan Beauty is form Hsinchu instead of Miaoli. In reality, none of it is grown in Hsinchu, so said Miss Lin, who, looking no more than 35, says she’s been making tea for over 30 years. All those award winners she tasted with us were made by her. The life of a tea master is not for humans, she said. During production season, she doesn’t get to sleep for days, and once she collapsed and fell asleep, and was so tired that she fought herself hard. What was more important, she said she asked herself, death by sleeplessness, or an award winning tea? Well, at the end we know which she chosed.

There is fewer and fewer quantity, she said, due to environmental issues. Because Taiwan Beauty has to be grown in relatively hot, humid areas to have the leaf hoppers come, alternating typhoons and dry spells have wrecked the stability of their lower elevations. Moreover, the buds are so tiny they are impossible to pick, even the most experienced 80 year old Obaasans have trouble harvesting more than half a lb a day. Once they are harvested, there is additional sorting, one bud at a time, to separate them into different batches. To win a competition, you need cooperation between the heavens, the earth, and mankind. It’s teamwork involving the universe. In any case, I am bringing back the Third Place Winner so we can all experience what that cooperation tastes like!

The Ugly Duckling of Tea

Who would have thought that a tea called Taiwan Eastern Beauty would start out as a half dead looking bush, the ugliest and most sparse I have ever seen. Not only are they not grown on high elevations (300 meters) they grow on yellow sandy soil, and spaced out far from each other. They are grown on flat lands where it’s relatively hot . The leaves are dark green with yellowish buds. Worst, they are usually successfully invaded by the small leaf hoppers (a kind of cicada) and all chewed up so that some leaves are already getting oxidized and turning red. Then, in order for the hot sun not to dry out the soil, wild weeds and grass are left intentionally unattended to hold more moisture in the ground for the tea bushes. These were by far some of the ugliest tea bushes I have ever seen.
Long ago when the island was still under Japanese rule, one day the leaf buds were discovered to have been damaged by the leaf hoppers, and one of the local farmers named Pang, thought it unfair and wasteful and made it into tea anyway. He successfully sold it at a very high price in town, and the other farmers wouldn’ t believe his story. Thereafter, this tea was named ‘Pong Fong Cha,’ or ‘exaggeration tea by the locals, but sold as Formosa Oolong by the Japanese to everywhere else in the world. Its taste reached the Queen of England one year and it was subsequently renamed Taiwan Eastern Beauty, as beautiful, sweet, and slim as the women of Taiwan, she said. Today, only the summer buds that the leaf hoppers have sucked from are harvested. Presto! After a laborious process, a tea that not only has unbelievable perfume and sweetest taste, it also retains its steeping ability for a long time. In a beauty pageant this tea will win first place for sure. The ugly duckling turns into a swan.

The Secret of Small Red Robe

No photos of the farms yet allowed. No photos of the processing as the producer is applying for a patent. I won't put a photo of the producer up either until that happens. Why all this mystery surrounding this tea?
The producer named it Small Red Robe as a homage to Big Red Robe, its big brother at Wuyi Mountain, China. Here in Taiwan, it's hard to say how many hundreds of years the Wuyi oolong type plants have been growing on the island. The leaves have always been plucked to be made into some generic oolong. Now, a new method was invented to elicit the best aspects of that varietal. I can get a good 20 infusions out of each batch of leaves, the taste is full of the energy of wood fire and dark caramel. The producer confided that he's already been aging these leaves for three or four years, but the leaves were born old. After his secret processing method, the Small Red Robe emerges with this unique flavor and character fully formed and tasting antiquated. Aging it just preserves and deepens what is already there. In any case, we get to be the only ones carrying this tea in the U.S. as rave reviews merited striking a deal for exclusivity with its producer. Yet another tea for us to rejoice over!
So much good tea, so little time.....

Made in Taiwan

Folks on this island are pretty proud of this title. It seems that not too long ago, Made in Taiwan meant manufactured factory goods blanketing the world. Now, that distinction goes to Made in China.
Today, Made in Taiwan means a couple of things. One, that it is artisan made, as folkcraft is gaining more and more recognition and popularity. Two, that it contains some unique, local source material, such as a local grown bamboo, unique earthenware, some local fabric weave....Of these many unique island items, two in particular are most notable: Tea, and pottery.
In the pottery district of Yingge, the artisans are making pottery from two different traditions: the ancient Chinese glazes and designs are gaining new interpretations and revitalization, and what the Japanese call the Wabi Sabi tradition, which I understand to be 'the perfection of imperfection'. I love them both. The trouble is, they are still made to be extremely practical for making that perfect cup of tea, and they will be small and expensive. It's a far, far cry from teabags.