Batch 123 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is a Dong Ding Oolong Tea from summer 2025 harvest in Lugu, Taiwan. Check out the tasting notes blogpost and video for more detailed info on this tea.
Since this month's edition coincides with the Lunar New Year 2026, we included a complimentary pack of tea that is from the same source. Locally, this type of tea is called "Reap Rice Tea", and we will talk more about that, and why we are sharing it later. But first let's talk about the source of this tea, and its significance in our tea life! The photo above was taken by us at dawn a couple years ago, at the end of an all-nighter in our friend's home factory in Phoenix Village, Lugu Township. We tied up all those bundles of semi-cured tea leaves in preparation for them to be rolled and dried the following day. That's our friend's mom, who arises in the middle of the night to silently observe with her perspective gained from a life in tea. She was born and raised on Dong Ding Mountain, and assisted her father in tea making since she was a small girl. She married into a tea making family from the neighboring village, which is where we have been visiting and learning for the last 20 years.
Eco-Cha's Dong Ding Oolong Tea has come from this family farm and factory for the last two or three years. Finally, this tea producer has promised us that there will be enough seasonal produce from his plots of tea to provide us, along with all his previously existing clientele. We had a couple of sources prior to this one, but the bottom line was that within a few years of sourcing from them, the generational transition from father to son affected the quality of tea that was produced. So we put more pressure on our old friend Mr. Chen (below) to supply us!
In pulling up photos for this post, we came upon this snapshot from ten years ago. How could it be ten years ago already! We cherish this photo, with Mr. Chen's mom in red, leaning forward and peering at us, as if saying "What exactly are you doing here?" And the other two women are very likely relatives, and definitely tea farming neighbors. This was spring harvest 2016, so that's proof that we've been loitering in this factory for a good while!
For the last decade, we've spent the most time in this factory overall. One reason is that we live 20 minutes away. But the primary reason is that we are most interested in learning everything we can about Dong Ding Oolong Tea, and this has become our most educational venue in this pursuit.
There are chapters of historical knowledge and industry info to be shared about the local tea scene in Lugu Township. It is unquestionably the hub of the modern tea industry, and home to the densest population of Taiwanese Oolong Tea artisans. Dong Ding Oolong Tea is the name that has gained the most renown in the last 30 years from this region. So we are inspired to share our own experience, but much more so — the roots of the modern tea culture in Taiwan that are embodied in this name of traditional Taiwanese tea.
This "welfie" above was taken while tasting the 2024 spring harvest that we helped process. The burn mark on Andy's forearm is testimony to the job he had of putting the leaves into the tumble heaters, then leaving it to the elder to decide when they were "done", and removing them. Mr. Chen was double-booked that day, and had to get up at dawn to go supervise the harvest of his Shan Lin Xi High Mountain Tea. So it was the most substantial hands-on experience we've had to date. We learned that night that Oolong Tea making is indeed an arduous process that requires all-nighters for each day of harvest — each singular batch of tea. Then there is a full day of rolling and drying. Then there are the repeated roasting sessions. Literally days of work for each day of harvest!
In sum, we are inspired to share this summer batch of Dong Ding Oolong Tea to represent the traditional tea culture that we have been most immersed in. Yes, Dong Ding Oolong is our all time favorite type of tea, there's that too. But it's so much bigger than our favorite tea. We can confidently say that this community is the heart of tea culture and the leading representative of the modern tea industry in Taiwan. This by no means belittles all of the other unique and equally deep micro-cultures and communities that are alive and well in Taiwan. It simply is a tribute to the local tea culture in Lugu, Taiwan (and our friend's super rad mom!).
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