Tea Adventures

Journeys of the Tea Buyer to origins of tea, covering terroir, culture, people. For more info: Teance.com

[teaadventures]

The typhoons this year were unrelenting, the crop will be minimal this year. Everywhere, I observed that the teeth on the leaves have gotten deeper, and more cutting, defending itself against something in the environment. On the mountains along the world, we saw cherry blossoms blooming- in October! Did the blossoms think it was spring of 2016 or spring of 2017? Climate confusion, said the village folks. Maybe there was no global warming- but there is definitely global climate confusion. The evidence is real- the research institute at Tung Ting said the bugs are confused too, attacking teas all at different times than they ever have. The yield on tea this year is less than the last, and if not for the expert artisans saving the day, we saw lesser artisans unable to turn a poor crop into good tea. Forget excellent teas we are used to. It will probably snow in tropical Taiwan again this year. We need to all savor the excellent teas in front of us.

[teaadventures]

The experience of being on top of a mountain range with nothing but rows of fragrant tea, amongst the white clouds- a tea aficionado's dream!

[teaadventures]

Intense fog at San Lin She, nourishing the tea plants

[teaadventures]

The business of High Mountain oolongs started some 50 years ago, unlike the organic growth of farming communities like Tung Ting. Here at San Lin She, only production facilities built on stilts are on the mountain. Teas harvested must be immediately wilted, hence the top floors are built like greenhouses. Utilizing the vertical space available, the teas move from top floor sun wilting to one floor down for cold air wilting, progressing downward into stages of processing. If only one’s own house can smell like a room full of tea leaves going through oxidation!

The crop we chose was today's: Oct 22nd. It doesn't get fresher than this.

[teaadventures]

At San Lin She, where High Mountain oolong is made. Most harvest and production won't happen for another couple weeks as we arrived into some early production. Seeing is believing, but smelling the fresh leaves wilting in a room, full of intense mango and apple fragrance, is not something you can image by reading a blog.

[teaadventures]

Some very happy fans of Charcoal Roasted Tung Ting from Mrs Su

There is no warmer hearted tea producer as Mrs. Su, who always treat my tourists like family instantly. She even gave us each a ration of her precious 20 year old dowry Tea that she won't sell for any price. The tea reflects its maker- and the Charcoal Roasted Tung Ting is amongst the most warming. One feels energy meridians open, and the world is one beautiful community.

[teaadventures]

Early morning on top of Tung Ting mountain at 800 meters

[teaadventures]

The Ruby 21 was the chosen one this season. The government has not yet repossessed the farm from Mr. Zhuang at Sun Moon Lake, which is good news for another year. We managed to get some old stock Assam that have been growing on the island for hundreds of years. The taste of woodiness is there without the astringency, and a mild honey taste makes it a fairly well rounded Assam over all. It helps that it's all whole leaf as well.

[teaadventures]

Miss Lin also has a beautiful restaurant with Michelin worthy Hakka cuisine. She grows her own rice of course, and the rice cakes that she makes have textures and taste you could not scour the earth with all the Hakka tribes and find. The tourists were treated to various tea dishes, including a fish stuffed with- Burnt Sugar Red tea, our current latest house favorite!

[teaadventures]

Miss Lin, the consummate Taiwan Beauty. One would never expect her hair to be out of place, much less digging the dirt to train the roots of her tea bushes. She is the most decorated tea maker in Miaoli, and her teas are beyond pricey. Yet every drop is like gold, if you only knew the amount of attention and vision, applied to her entire ecosystem, from farming to her newest tea classrooms.

[teaadventures]

Trevor is one of our newest next generation of dedicated, tea professionals for the US. That is, one's tea journey is a life time pursuit and most certainly, there is a point where you embark and then never turn back. With the tea world, once you have been vacuumed into its magic, you'll spend your time wondering about how long you'll live, because you have some Pu-erh aging and you want to get the maximum mileage in age, or you want to see what kinds of fragrance get produced by this global climate change in the next 20 years. Amongst other purposes in life, these are what some of us tea nuts do muse about. For a young person like Trevor, getting off on the right foot means meeting the tea farms produced by the top tea artisans in their fields, kind of like watching movies for the first time in your life, with only Oscar winners. Here at the Taiwan Beauty farm, a special grass that traps night dew is growing tall, as the roots of the tea bushes are trained to dig itself deep to look for water. A biodynamic farm full of egrets, all kinds of bugs, and most importantly, the green leaf hoppers.

[teaadventures]

This year.'s Honey Jialong, the Ume Plum version, was sold out immediately and I have 1 can just for tasting.

[teaadventures]

Happy tourists

Experiencing Taiwanese flowers and fruits for the first time means lots of happy faces.

[teaadventures]

Baochong oolong, fragrant like the island of Formosa, fresh and vegetal with scent of papaya and mangos. This year there were endless typhoons on the island, looking to be a brutal year for the tea farmers again.

[teaadventures]

Off to Taiwan!

[teaadventures]

The tea to taste this season: Second generation Dahongpao, and Flowery Shuixian.

[teaadventures]

Meeting the Dahongpao mother bushes at last!