Teas from Taiwan’s famous mountains are prized around the world, with passionate tea lovers seeking out Alishan, Dong Ding, and Lishan oolongs for the promise of quality and flavor that these teas deliver.
The most famous of the teas are perhaps the “high mountain” or gao shan (高山茶) teas grown at elevations of between 3,000 and 8,000 feet (1,000 and 2,500 meters), where days are warm but nights are chilly. These high mountain locales feature the perfect weather for tea: misty clouds that hide the highest peaks, filling the air with beneficial moisture and protecting the tea plants from glaring sunlight. In these shady conditions, the flush develops slowly and the tiny buds and leaves develop more of the amino-acids that give them their amazing, sweetly floral flavors. Fragrant balled oolongs produced at such heights are usually made from three or four leaves still attached to the woody stem and, as they brew, the little balls of tea unfurl to show off the crinkly completeness of each shoot.
Some of the island’s most well-known tea-producing mountains include Alishan, Yu Shan, Li Shan, Dong Ding, Jin Xuan, Shan Lin Xi, and Wu She.
The high grown teas of Alishan (阿里山山脈), whose name is said to mean “Ancestor Mountain,” are grown at elevations of more than 2,300 feet (700 meters), and the bushes scramble upwards to more than 5,600 feet (1,700 meters). As well as tea, the area is famous for its forests of conifers and eucalyptus trees, its waterfalls and golden sunrises.
Yu Shan (玉山), or “Jade Mountain,” is Taiwan’s highest mountain and takes its name from the snow-covered peaks that shine like jade in the bright sunlight. Some of the teas grow up at 5,250 feet (1,600 meters) and give liquors that are smooth, intense, and rich with high mountain flavor. The teas that grow on the steep craggy slopes of Li Shan (李 山) or “Pear Mountain” — with altitudes ranging from 5,250 to 8,530 feet (1,600 to 26,00 meters) — often are enveloped by cool mists that swirl gently around the upper peaks. Named for the pear orchards that were once a mainstay of the local economy, Li Shan oolongs are creamy, sweet, and rich with hints of ripe pears and summer flowers.
In the late 17th century, when new settlers from China started cultivating tea in Taiwan (then called Ilha Formosa), the first gardens were laid out around Taipei where the Wenshan mountains sweep upwards to the southeast of Taipei. From this busy city area, the growers moved to Nantou County in the middle of the island and it is here that the famous Dong Ding (凍頂) mountain was first planted with tea in the middle of the 19th century. Also known as Tong Ting, or “Frozen Summit,” the mountain is famous for its fragrant, velvety, honeyed oolongs that grow at around 2,500 feet (750 meters). Nearby Shan Lin Xi (杉林溪), misty and cool, also produces spectacular oolongs that have a fresh, sweet aroma and a bright, soft flavor with hints of almonds and pine and the faintest suggestion of earthiness.
The Wenshan mountains around Taipei are themselves famous, not as a gao shan area but for the deliciously sweet, open-leaved, rich green Bao Zhong (also called Pouchong) that is made around the village of Pinglin. Only 18 percent oxidised, these almost-green, just-oolong teas are sensational and full of the fragrance of sweet peas and gardenias. Bao Zhongs (包種茶) is a fragrantly floral tea that looks and tastes very different from the array of balled oolongs that Taiwan is now so famous for, but the individual oolongs from the different regions also stand out from each other because of the influence, not just of region, altitude and season, but of variations in the processing techniques employed by the tea makers. These teas are yet another example of man working with nature to create spectacularly wonderful teas.
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Guest contributor Jane Pettigrew is a tea historian, writer, consultant, specialist working in the UK and around the world explaining and offering insight into the world of tea. She’s written 15 books and hosts regular master classes and tea tastings. You can find her at www.janepettigrew.com.
Originally published at teforia.com.
