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Why tea?  I would like to say that tea is life, that it is synonymous with Taiwan and my memories of the island.  But I would be exaggerating.  Growing up, tea was reserved for the elders and for company.  At banquets, kids would get a taste of Jasmine tea's light florals, or be lucky enough to add extra rock candy to the Chrysanthemum teas.  Those, nice, honey-Oolongs Taiwan is known for? Served only on special occasions.  At home, we drank boiled water.

But culturally, popular songs and TV soap operas were full of stories of the Tea Girls who picked the tea leaves in plantations around Taipei.  I thought of these as simple stories of country girls falling in-love with the sons of the plantation owners (you can find them on You-Tube now).  But, the Tea Girls of the 1950s and 60s really symbolized economic freedom and movement away from the rural patriarchal society towards a socially freer, albeit, industrial, future. Mom would tell me of her job at a factory after graduating from middle school (9th grade), while she gave most of her wages to her parents, she felt independent enough to (gasp) perm her hair, go to movies, and (gasp, gasp) fall in-love.

Fast-forward forty years, and I find Taiwan teas have not only evolved from tea for export, but into prized and premium teas.  My first inkling was being offered a High Mountain Tea from Ali-shan by my uncle.  It was clear, fragrant and simply delicious.  Uncle said it was not available here (in the States), and that it was expensive.  Then I see Ali-shan teas listed in Palais des The's (Gao Shan Cha - meaning High Mountain Tea) inventory; and in 2019, there just happened to be a tea expo in the Lobby of the Tainan Symphony Hall! I am more than intrigued.  As the island became more prosperous, more people drank tea, and demanded the good stuff.  Taiwan currently exports less than 15% of its teas.  Most of the product is consumed locally.  The Taiwanese are connoisseurs and I needed to catch up. Visiting plantations and learning about tea became the backbone of the trip. Let the tea tour begin!

We leave Sun Moon Lake and travel south to Nantou County, specifically Lugu Township. This is the area known for the Dong Ding tea, a Taiwanese Oolong, with medium oxidation, medium roast, and with flavors of honey, and fruit.  The tea is named after the nearby mountain.  Apparently, this area, with its sunny days, but foggy mornings, are perfect for the tea plants. Dong Ding teas are grown at 600-900 meters.  It is not a high mountain tea, which is grown at elevations of over 1000 meters.

Our first stop is Yen's Tea Garden in Guangxing Village. This is to be a DYI experience.  We are met outside a very modern tea storefront/studio by Tomato (full name: Cho Ying-ling).  She and her husband are designers by education, but have come back to work with the family's tea plantation.  Tomato hands us conical hats woven from bamboo leaves.  I am very familiar with these hats: everyone in the country-side wore them outdoors for harvesting, planting, and sun screen.  I know them as "liangmo" which is probably Hakka for "cool hats". Tomato is not Hakka, and she did not recognize my garbled pronunciation of the hat name in Hakka.

She does give us each a hat and a basket and she leads us up the mountain road to rows of tea plants.  Her mother-in-law manages the growing, oxidizing and roasting of tea.   Tomato and her husband are taking care of the front end, and are really trying to educate people on tea, hence this new business venture of the DYI experience of letting people pick the teas, roll the leaves, and simply understand the process of tea. We are to pick tender leaves with two or three leaves each.  The pickings are slim because they had just harvested in December.  Still, there is enough for all of us to fill our baskets.  We are to pick off the flowers if we see them.  The tea we are picking is actually TRES #12, a Milk Oolong or Jin Xuan (Golden Daylily) with a creamy, buttery and floral flavor profile. It is a cultivar developed by the Taiwan Tea Research and Extension Station (TRES) in 1981.  This is a wonderful surprise, because this is the tea I order at my local coffee shop (KOMA) since they started carrying them a year ago.

After we have harvested enough leaves, Tomato leads us back to the showroom where we are given a flat basket to roll our tea leaves.  Basically, we are breaking the leaves down to release oils and moisture.  Once they have been rolled enough, we place them in a paper ring where they will be roasted.  The sealed packages will be sent to our last hotel in Taipei as souvenirs.  It was fun to get our hands on the tea, to understand just what it takes to roll and shape the teas before roasting.  While we roll the teas, Tomato is busy brewing teas for tasting.

Our second stop is at Wei Lu Zhu Tea located in another village. It is higher in the mountain, and we are to have lunch there as well as a communal tea demo.  The tea house building is located in the midst of tea fields and is a very new two-story building.  The interior is modern with a pared-back Chinese tea house feel.  We remove our shoes and put on slippers at the entry.  It is lunch time and the tea house will provide lunch.  This is something the tour company arranged since there is a dearth of restaurants in this area. We had no expectations, but lunch was a series of fresh dishes beautifully prepared and delicious. Before dessert, we all troop upstairs for a communal tea experience around a hot stove.  We re each given an apron with the name of our tea, and our hostess/teacher takes us through a description of the various teas, how long to brew them, and at what temperature.  She demonstrates a typical female way to hold tea cups and sip tea, and the male counterpart.  We brew our tea, sip, and then share with our neighbors.  After the demo, we go downstairs once more and have our dessert.  I compliment the chef and she said she did this as a hobby. This was a definite highlight.  And the teas?  So varied, and so good!

We finish around 3 PM and leave the Lugu area for Chiayi, where we will be staying two nights at the Maison De Chine.  Tonight we hit the Wenhua Road Night Market, where Kent shows me a wonderful shop for Tofu Pudding. It is too late to explore the area, but we do have another night here.  After we hit the night market, we gather in Chau-Wen's room and have drinks and snacks.  Laundry is also free, so time to take care of that as well.  Tomorrow, we go up to Alishan and will spend the entire day forest bathing.

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