Lishan Oolong Tea

2 harvests a year. Grown on 2,600m, the Li Shan oolong tea is under snowy environment during winter. The growing period is long, and the area is always surrounded by clouds. Big temperature difference day and night result in tight appearance, very aromatic, rich taste, smooth in the throat, heavy cold mineral taste, tolerant of repetitive soaking. Lishan Oolong Tea is the best tea among Taiwan’s high mountain oolong tea varieties.

Alishan Oolong Tea

It is grown in Alishan region of Chiayi County in Taiwan between 1200m – 2300m. Tea planted here is nourished by mildews, low temperature and long growing periods. This tea is not contaminated, but irrigated by natural spring water, sweet and fresh. Oolong tea is bright gold, clear and shiny. Tea type with light baking is greenish light yellow, rich in taste, smooth in the throat, no bitterness. The aroma depends on the baking. The type with light baking presents a fresh flower aroma; the type with heavy baking present ripe fruity aroma.

Dong Ding Oolong Tea

It is grown on the Dong Ding Mountain of Lu Ku Town in Nantou County, distributed among an elevation around 700 – 1,200m. Due to fresh climate, sufficient rain drop, richsoil, mid sun light, and cloudy all day, the best environment to grow tea. This tea is fresh, aromatic and sweet. Its appearance is dark green and half balls. The best characteristic is its smoothness in the throat, long lasting aftertaste. Because of its unique aroma and taste, Dong Ding Oolong Tea has become the main stream of Formosa tea varieties for domestic and overseas tea lovers.

Jin-Xuan Oolong Tea

Jin-Xuan Oolong Tea is mainly grown in Alishan of Chiayi County and Nantou County in Taiwan. This tea is created by Taiwan Tea Research and Extension Station (file # 12 and experiment code 2027). The tea liquor is golden-yellow with natural milk flavor. Jin-Xuan’s Leaf is wider and bigger than most oolongs. It’s the new generation of Formosa oolong tea and only grown in Taiwan. This tea is very popular for young people.

Wenshan Paochong Tea

Wenshan Paochong Tea area includes Hsindien, Shidin, Shenkeng, Hsinshih, Pingshi, etc. They belong to the light fermented tea. Stripe shaped appearance and naturally crinkled. Bright green, aromatic, the richer the aroma, the better the quality. When preparing Wenshang Paochong Tea, its aroma is the best express. Due to its leaves are loose stripes, when preparing the tea, please be generous. For the aroma to release, the best instrument is quickly induced and hermetic ceramic pot. The water temperature should be 85℃ – 90℃

Eastern Beauty Tea (Oriental Beauty Tea)

A type of oolong tea which is heavily fermented, also known as Bai-Hao or White-tip Oolong Tea. Its appearance is loose stripe as Paochong Tea. This magical tea is about 60% oxidation. The color is a mix of bright white, green, red, yellow, and brown. After the tea leaves are bitten by the pest of “tea leafhopper”, due to the tea tree’s natural healing ability, it enhances theincrease of “tea alkaloids” and “tea tannins: So the tea can easily produce a special aroma. In the world, only Taiwan produces this tea. The harvest season of this tea is around 10 days before and after the “Dragon Festival” (end of May or first week of June). The tea sprouts are curled and crinkled, can be picked to produce a tea with special aroma, honey and apple flavored, very high quality.

Four Seasons Oolong Tea

Four Seasons Oolong Tea (also called Evergreen Tea) is mainly grown at lower elevation of Nantou County, which is the central part of Taiwan. This tea is improved from the native Formosa oolong tea. It is usually roasted by light fire and tasted with special flavor of the betel nut flower. The leaf size is small and tea liquor is golden-green with a sweet-flowery fragrance. A superb green oolong tea. The best growing periods for Four Seasons Oolong Tea are spring and winter of each year.

Jade Oolong Tea

Jade Oolong Tea is mainly grown in Alishan of Chiayi County and Nantou County in Taiwan. It is bred by Taiwan Tea Research and Extension Station (file # 13 and experiment code 2029). This tea is famous for its strong and special aroma like magnolia or jasmine. Strong serration on leaf exists. The tea liquor is golden-yellow with special fresh flavor. It’s a light-fire roasted oolong tea and very glycolic and smoothly when drinking.

Tie Guan In Tea

Its main growing areas are Mucha of Taipei City and Shimen Town of Taipei County. The biggest difference of Tie Guan In and other teas is its smoothness in the throat, and the fruity smell from baking. This tea has particular light fruit acidity, very rich in taste.

There are many ways to prepare Tie Guan In, the soaking time is hard to control. When there is no warm soaking, the first , second, and third round can have the following combinations: 20sec-15sec- 15sec, 15sec- 10sec- 10sec, 10sec- 5sec- 5sec, 5sec- 3sec- 3sec, and fast soaking fast drinking. Usually, more fermented, more baked, the leaves are more chopped, the worse the quality, thus its soaking time is shorter. When preparing Tie Guan In, the pot mouth must be big, with quick water flow and smooth. Good Tie Guan In needs boiling water to show its characteristics. Worse quality Tie Guan In, Wu Yi Yen Cha, and Shoei Shian are best suited with colder water to avoid bitterness.

Formosa Black Tea

The oldest history of black tea production in Taiwan can be traced back to Emperor Kang-Xi era in Qing Dynasty around 1697, while the mass production of Formosa black tea started in the period of Japan’s domination, the main purpose is to supply the demands from Japan’s own country. In 1903, Taiwan’s governor founded the tea experiment station in Taoyuan County and started the trial planting of black tea. In 1906, black tea was produced officially and was mainly exported to Turkey and Russia from 1908. The original Formosa black tea is souchong breed. In order to develop the black tea business in Taiwan, Japanese brought the souchong black tea to the London tea auction market for evaluation; the comment was the tea is rich on aroma while the tea liquid is not strong enough.

In 1926, a Japanese named Gen–Jilang Sinjing who worked for the tea experiment station introduced Assam tea from India to Taiwan. He did some trial planting in Yuchih, Puli and Shuili areas respectively. It turned out that above areas surround the Sun-Moon Lake with high temperature, moisture and rich rainfall are similar to the Assam planting areas in India and made it an ideal region for growing black tea in Taiwan. The trial planting was very successful and won a high reputation from the London auction market; it soon became a top tea gift among Japanese nobles and was even selected as a royal gift for the Japanese emperor. Japanese started to grow Assam tea extensively in above areas surround the Sun-Moon Lake and it became the only region which grown Assam tea thereafter. Taiwan's governor also founded a tea experiment station in Sun-Moon Lake and promoted Formosa Assam Tea from then. Mr. Gen-Jilang was honored to be the "Father of Formosa Black Tea" due to his great contribution.

After that, many Japanese tea companies came here to grow Assam tea and built some modern tea factories. There was once a glory history about black tea export around end 1940, the total year export is over 7,000 tons in average, and black tea was a popular industry in Yuchih and Puli areas then. Unfortunately, the good time didn't last long, the cost of black tea production was raising rapidly after end 1960. Formosa black tea can not compete with those teas from India and Sri Lanka in the international market. In the consideration of bread and butter, the tea farmers changed to grow betel palms instead in mountain areas of Nantou County. The glory history of Formosa black tea was forgotten by people slowly thereafter.

In September 21st, 1999, a strong earthquake hit Nantou County and caused serious damages for everything. Local tourism business was going down dramatically; many people lost their jobs due to the natural disaster. The difficult situation is also applied to Yuchih Township. In order to create jobs for elder people in Yuchih Township, they changed the betel palm gardens to black tea gardens again. However, it doesn’t make sense to grow low-pricing inferior black tea any more. After consulting with TRES (Tea Research and Extension Station), they decided to grow high quality organic hand-plucked black tea instead. After their hard works for years, these organic black tea gardens are thriving year by year, the tea's quality is greatly enhanced accordingly. The climate and geography in Yuchih is originally quite ideal for black tea, according to international black tea reviewers, the black tea grown here in the elevation about 600~800m has the same aroma and flavor as those high quality ones grown in the elevation above 2,000m. The high quality black tea is soon popular and well accepted by domestic and overseas tea lovers. To promote the black tea industry further, Nantou government unified the brand name of the black tea grown in Yushih and Puli areas the “Sun Moon Lake Black Tea”.

At present, the types of Sun Moon Lake Black Tea include: Formosa Assam Black Tea, TRES No. 8 Black Tea, Formosa Native Black Tea and Formosa Ruby Black Tea. The most outstanding one could be Formosa Ruby Black Tea. The premium tea is created by TRES (file # 18) after long experiments and researches for decades. The tea is a successful mating of Myanmar Black Tea and Formosa Native Black Tea. The superb quality makes it win the name of “Formosa Ruby”. This tea has a natural fragrance of cinnamon with a slight hint of mint. The special trait of Formosa Ruby Black Tea makes it one of renowned black teas around the world and won a reputation top-class black tea. The tea reviewers said this is a typical Formosa black tea and only available in Taiwan.