Batch 131 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is an Award Winning Tie Guan Yin Oolong Tea from spring 2026 harvest. In addition to procuring our in store batch for 2026, we procured this batch that was entered into competition at the Muzha Farmers' Association and achieved an award. We appreciated this batch for its balanced yet complex profile. It's a relatively smooth, mellow character of TGY that checks all the boxes of making it represent. Check the tasting notes post and video for full details. We don't pay much attention to which award anymore. It's more about representing the quality standard that the competition sets. This provides a reference to the local industry trends and how they are facilitating the preservation of local tea making traditions. Honestly, we've tasted dozens of various award winning teas over the years, and while our quality assessment is in alignment with the local competitions, we have our own parameters of what is exemplary of a given tea type. So, awards are meaningful, but not an end-all. Having said that, our guy wins awards consistently, like every time. The photo below is from a couple years ago of the artisan in front of his awards wall.

The tea name Tie Guan Yin Oolong can represent different things. First, it is the name of a tea tree cultivar that originates from Anxi Province in China. This cultivar was brought to Taiwan generations ago, and continues to be popular, although less commonly found than other tea strains. Since Eco-Cha is an exclusive purveyor of specialty Taiwan Tea, we represent this name as a unique processing method that was developed in Muzha, Taipei over 50 years ago.

Taiwan's Tea Research and Extension Station (TRES) is a branch of the central government's Department of Agriculture. This organization was originally established during the Japanese occupation, with over 100 years of history. In the 1970's, a major aspect of its work was to develop the pre-existing tea growing regions in a way that would offer differentiating value to each region, and simultaneously preserve some of the local tea traditions. Based on the prevalent strains fo tea being grown in a given region, combined with the climate conditions, the TRES developed processing methods that would distinguish a particular region by the type of tea that was produced.

Our friend from whom we've been sourcing very small batches of Tie Guan Yin Oolong Tea for many years embodies the tradition like no one else we've met. He procures small batches of raw leaf material, and once the leaves are on his bamboo trays of his dollhouse sized factory, does virtually all the work himself. His curing methods take twice as long as standard Oolong Tea processing, and are more labor intensive. Particularly the rolling technique he uses is a relic of past generations. Much smaller balls of leaves wrapped in cloth, rolled in much a much more labor intensive fashion. It doesn't stop there though. He then roasts the leaves 4 or 5 times over weeks of time for a total of about 40 hours!

The image above represents the handmade artisanal elements of his work. His home factory is the smallest set up we have seen here in Taiwan. The leaves are rolled in a traditional fashion, without the use of machines that are now used in virtually every tea factory in Taiwan.

The distinctive character of Muzha Tie Guan Yin comes from this unique step during the rolling and drying process where the leaves are tightly wrapped in cloth and put in a warmer to "steam" in their own juices, so to speak. The temperature of the warmer is only around 70°C, so they don't actually steam. But the effect is a bit like a very slight fermentation that creates a tangy flavor note. This tangy/fruity quality, combined with extensive post production roasting results in a flavor profile that stands alone.

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