News

Eco-Cha is featured on a Taiwan TV News station's lifestyle program called "Building Dreams For A New Taiwan"  (築夢新台灣)  broadcasting tonight. When the station called to notify us of the broadcast, I was prompted to go back take a look at the behind-the-scenes snapshots I took during the shoot. I discovered that they captured a personal story that I'm inspired to share.

Dana Ter, freelance writer and staff reporter for the Features section of the Taipei Times, recently approached Eco-Cha to be a subject of a piece she wrote on Taiwan's artisanal tea culture. We happily cooperated, and responded to her request to visit tea farms in the Taipei area by taking her to meet two tea farmers whom we've befriended in recent years. It turned out to be just what Dana was looking for — tea producers who represent the boutique artisan tea culture in Taiwan.

As we promised in our recent blog post, here is our video of a very significant event that we were very excited to have the chance to document. Last year, when our mentor told us about the first workshop that he had just held (and neglected to tell us!), we strongly encouraged him to make this an annual event. This year, we are happy to say that our badgering paid off! Now, we are able to share a short film of a local workshop that we believe has global significance in preserving the quality and value of traditionally made Dong Ding Oolong Tea. So, here is a window into our world of tea that we are dedicated to preserving by sharing it with tea lovers around the world!

The Yonglong Fenghuang Community recently conducted its inaugural local workshop emulating the Lugu Farmers' Association's model of a Traditional Dong Ding Oolong Tea making practicum. This community is the historical heart of Dong Ding Oolong Country. It is where this specialty tea originated and continues to represent the most traditional methods of Dong Ding Oolong tea making.

We are very excited to announce that we have a very small amount of top award-winning competition tea to share, and it happens to be our personal favorite tea type and locale: Dong Ding Oolong from Yonglong/Fenghuang Community in Lugu. This recent winter batch of tea was entered into the locals-only competition in the historical tea producing villages on and around Dong Ding Mountain.

This father and son team who manage their farm and process their harvests together have both won first prize in their local tea competition within the last ten years. This is an exclusive competition that only residents of the historical Dong Ding Oolong tea producing villages of Fenghuang, Yonglong, and Zhangya on Dong Ding Mountain are eligible to enter. This is home to the most concentrated population of traditional tea artisans in Taiwan, and very likely in the world.

In our previous post, we gave a brief of description Batch #3, along with its source, and how this tea is a perfect match in terms of what Eco-Cha aspires to promote in our involvement with the local specialty tea industry here in Taiwan. So now we just want to talk about the tea itself, and how we determine this batch to be a unique find, and why it qualifies as our next choice for the Eco-Cha Tea Club.

We recently received this question from Eco-Cha Monthly Tea Club member Paul in Norway:

For the tea of the month you said "integrating traditional Tieguanyin oxidation methods with Dong Ding roasting skills." I was wondering if you could describe this process in more detail? 

We thought it worthwhile to share our response to this question with all of the Tea Club members as well as our readership in general for your reference.

Yesterday we traveled up to Taipei to present a selection of aged and charcoal roasted Oolong teas that we sourced for the occasion, hosted in an antique and art collector's home. We brewed leaves of eleven different batches of tea ranging from the most recent winter harvest to leaves harvested over forty years ago.