Batch 85 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is the 7th anniversary commemoration of Eco-Cha's cooperation with Mr. and Mrs. Lin. Seven years ago as of this winter's harvest, Mr. and Mrs. Lin produced their very first crop of certified organic tea from their newly established farm. In support of their endeavor, we ran a crowd funding campaign to procure the entire inaugural harvest. After reaching our initial goal, we ran a booster campaign to raise funds for the renovation of the cabin on their remote homesteaded farmland where Mr. Lin was born and raised.
Batch 84 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is a Red Jade #18 Black Tea from the historical Sun Moon Lake tea growing region of Taiwan. This cultivar, given the name Red Jade (紅玉) is registered as hybrid #18 by Taiwan's Tea Research and Extension Station. You can learn all about its background in our recentblogpost, but this Black Tea hybrid strain is unique to Taiwan, and was "born" in the 20th century. It has become quite popular over the last 20 years since it was first commercially introduced in the early 2000's.
Batch 79 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is a Roasted Shan Lin Xi High Mountain Oolong Tea. As explained in thesourcing post, this batch is the roasted version of Eco-Cha's winter 2021 stock of Shan Lin Xi High Mountain Oolong. We were inspired to dedicate our reserve stock of Shan Lin Xi winter tea to the the Tea Club, upon learning that our friend achieved Top Category Award in the world's largest and most prestigious Oolong Tea competition! So we asked him to roast our stock just how he roasted his competition tea — which increased its value about 5 times of the original unroasted version!
Batch 79 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is a Roasted Shan Lin Xi High Mountain Oolong Tea. It is the roasted version of our winter 2021 batch we offered in our store. Our friend from whom we sourced this tea submitted a single entry from this same harvest into the Lugu Farmers' Association Dong Ding Oolong Tea Competition and achieved Top Category Award (shown above). When our friend told us this exciting news, we asked him if we could hire his services to roast our reserve stock the same way he roasted his top award winning tea. So this month's edition of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is from the same harvest and roasted the same way as the tea that ranked within the top 2% out of over 5000 entries.
Batch 78 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is a Traditional Dong Ding Oolong Tea harvested in April 2022. What makes this tea type different from our standard offering of Ding Ding Oolong is that the traditional version is significantly more oxidized and left unroasted. This is how it was made by the local artisans prior to its commercial promotion that began some 40 years ago.
The figure in the foreground of the photo above is the matriarch of this family of Traditional Dong Ding Oolong Tea makers. This pic was snapped a few years ago, and she is now in her late eighties, so she is not the tea picking queen she once was, but she is as talkative and friendly as ever!
The character of this tea expresses the dedication of this next-generation tea artisan who is truly embodying his craft to achieve a family recipe that not only clearly sets him apart from market grade oolongs, but even from his local neighbors and colleagues. He is usurping the resources of his inheritance to create a truly distinctive character of tea.
Shown above is the father, son and uncle facilitating a harvest from this new plot of tea a few years ago. It's just this type of local scene that is the heart of our inspiration. This is what it's all about!
Batch 76 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is a first for us, in the sense that we have never sourced tea from the Lalashan region before. Lalashan is the northernmost high elevation tea growing area on the island of Taiwan, and has a significantly colder and usually wetter climate than all other regions. Snowfall on Taiwan's High Mountain Tea farms is a rare occasion. In fact, only a small portion of Taiwan tea farms have ever seen snow. We share this image to represent the location and climate in the Lalashan that sets it apart. The photo above was taken in 2016.
Batch 75 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is offered during the month of Lunar New Year, and we expressly chose this tea for the occasion. Ying Xiang Dong Pian Oolong is a fresh, vibrant, full-bodied unroasted Oolong that was harvested at the very end of the growing season. The colder weather during its growing season gives it a distinctive profile that exemplifies the name Dong Pian, or late winter harvest.
Batch 75 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is an Ying Xiang Dong Pian Oolong Tea from Yong Long Village in Lugu, Taiwan —at 700m elevation. Ying Xiang (迎香) means "Alluring Aroma", and is the name given to Tai Cha #20. This is a relatively recent hybrid tea cultivar introduced by Taiwan's Tea Research and Extension Station less than 10 years ago, and has slowly but surely gained popularity — especially at mid-elevation tea growing regions.
Batch 74 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club is an Eco-Farmed GABA Oolong Tea. We coined the termEco-Farmedto represent tea that is sourced from a certified organic tea farm, without representing the certification itself. This farm is not only certified organic, but it is managed with the most natural farming methods we've seen in the local tea industry here in Taiwan. He has pioneered these farming methods, and after 20 years of challenging research, is now successfully managing several plots of tea and producing specialty types of organic tea.
