Taiwan Lunar New Year Lanterns
For many people in Asia, the start of the Lunar New Year is what Christmas is to folks in most Western countries. Shops and business shut down for a week so people can go home to spend time with family. Festive decorations abound everywhere you look, and Taiwan was no exception. Here is what things looked like on the ground from Bamboo Mountain (Zhushan), Taiwan.
Competition Grade Wenshan Baozhong Tea Tasting Notes | Eco-Cha Tea Club
Batch 63 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club was harvested in November 2020, processed, and then sorted to remove stem material and any discolored leaves in preparation for the winter 2020 competition and the New Taipei City Farmers's Association.
The distinctive quality of Baozhong Tea is that the leaves are shuffled well to induce uniform oxidation, but they are only minimally rolled. This keeps their physical composition in tact. The leaves are not damaged by pressure rolling. This locks in a fresh, green quality that put Baozhong Tea in a category of its own.
Competition Grade Wenshan Baozhong Tea | Eco-Cha Tea Club
Upon arrival, we were immediately led to the tasting table where there were two bowls of brewed tea leaves on the tea tray with less than 30mL of cold tea in each. We were ordered to taste them without any introduction to what they were. We immediately recognized them as freshly produced Baozhong Tea of high quality, but there was only enough left for two small sips. After first sip, we were told that one of them was much more expensive than the other, and then asked which one we liked. We took the second sip and picked one, saying that it was a bit more fragrant, and were met with a scowl and a sigh. It was the most honest facial expression we've seen in ages. The expression above was probably 10 minutes after that moment, but still holds some of the humor and angst!
What Does Tea Mean to You?
Tea is deeply embedded in the fiber of society in Taiwan. From bubble tea shops to chatting with friends over gong-fu brewed tea, most people here either consume or at least encounter tea in some way in their daily lives. Beyond the fact that it's the most commonly consumed beverage, we wanted to know what tea means to the person on the street in Taiwan, so we started asking them.
Eco-Farmed High Mountain Oolong Tea
We have never felt more privileged and excited about representing a tea source than we do about this one. We feel so strongly about this farm and its owners that we are making a documentary film of their lives that led them to the place where they are now. We look forward to sourcing tea from them for years and years to follow!
Competition Grade Wuyi Oolong Tasting Notes | Eco-Cha Tea Club
Wuyi was once the specialty tea cultivar of choice in the historical Songboling tea growing region in southern Nantou County. But it got replace with more prolific cultivars in recent decades. We are grateful to have a chance to experience this tea strain that really does stand on its own in comparison to the more popular strains. It has a robust character when made as a lightly oxidized, unroasted tea. And its hardy nature is able to withstand extensive roasting that other strains cannot.
Competition Grade Wuyi Oolong | Eco-Cha Tea Club
Batch 62 of the Eco-Cha Tea Club comes from the same plot of tea as last month's batch. When we tasted this month's batch of unroasted Wuyi Oolong, following the heavily roasted batch that we shared last month, we were inspired to offer these two very different tasting teas back-to-back. Tasting these two batches of tea that were made from basically the same raw produce (different seasonal harvests), but processed differently, provides an educational experience on how significant processing methods are in determining the final product.
Caffeine Calculator 4.0: Now With Bottled Iced Teas and More Loose-Leaf Teas!
It is important to know how much caffeine you are consuming, but with so many different teas, sizes, and brands; it can be tricky to figure out exactly how each tea stacks up.
Ready-to-drink bottled teas have caffeine values listed on the bottle, but how does the caffeine in ready-to-drink tea measure up with loose-leaf tea, or a tea bag? What about steep time? Is double the amount of tea double the caffeine?
The Caffeine Calculator makes all this easy.
Hong Oolong Tea
Our Hong Oolong Tea comes from Meishan Township, Chiayi County, Taiwan. Meishan is the northeastern corner of the Alishan tea producing region, and in our perception, it generally offers the best Alishan Tea. So, even though Hong Oolong is not commonly made in this region, Eco-Cha (at long last!) has chosen this source for specific reasons.
Heavy Roast Wuyi Oolong Tea Tasting Notes | Eco-Cha Tea Club
We are kicking off our sixth year of the Eco-Cha Tea Club this month, with batch 61! And this month's batch of Heavy Roast Wuyi Oolong is a record breaker in that it is definitely the most thoroughly roasted batch of tea that we have shared to date. We think this tea will be appealing at this time of year — especially for our members who live in colder climates. This is a very hearty, rich, and warming brew. So we like to think it will make the holiday season even cozier!
Heavy Roast Wuyi Oolong Tea | Eco-Cha Tea Club
With natural farming, the trees mature more slowly, as they must fend for themselves and build immunity to naturally occurring pests without the artificial assistance of chemical farm products. But as our friend from whom we source this tea explained to us today, when the trees eventually develop a stable immunity, they are significantly different in their constitution than conventionally farmed tea trees. And this means the quality of leaf that is harvested from these trees is also notably different.
Alishan High Mountain Tea Winter Harvest
We took this photo last spring when we slept out at this spot in order to catch the early morning harvest. It gives you a sense of the environment and the extent of farm development in this area of the Alishan High Mountain Tea producing region. It is one of the reasons we've chosen this farm as our source. This area was already developed as a rural farming community before the onset of modern tea production in Taiwan. The family farms were simply repurposed to grow tea when High Mountain Tea became popular. So, the development of tea production in this area has had less environmental impact than most other High Mountain Tea producing regions in Taiwan.
