News
Eco-Farmed High Mountain Oolong | Summer 2021 Harvest
We have become close friends, and this is a unique connection in our 25 years of involvement with tea producers in the local Taiwan tea industry. This farm is a rare resource, given its environment and micro-climate. The owners have faced many challenges and only in the last few years have developed their organic farming to a stable situation. Now, with some support and guidance, we believe they will soon be producing some of the best organic tea in Taiwan!
Shan Lin Xi High Mountain Oolong Summer Harvest
We brewed our spring batch of Shan Lin Xi High Mountain Oolong Tea alongside the freshly picked summer batch to observe the differences between these two consecutive harvests from the same source. These two batches exhibited the classic seasonal traits of spring and summer high mountain tea.
Flavor Your Iced Tea
While pure iced teas made from quality Taiwan loose leaf tea are amazingly satisfying and refreshing on their own, sometimes it's also nice to mix it up with some natural flavorings. Here are some suggestions on how to flavor iced teas for an added kick.
Four Easy Loose Leaf Iced Tea Recipes to Beat the Summer Heat
Iced tea made from quality loose leaf tea leaves is not only extremely refreshing, but it's literally a 1-2-3 step process to prepare! Read on as we share with you four easy to make loose leaf iced tea recipes to beat the summer heat!
Alishan High Mountain Oolong Summer Harvest (2021)
Spring is classically the best quality stock of any given year. So it is no surprise at all that it is more flavorful than the summer crop. This is as it should be, given that it costs almost twice as much. So in the end, the value of summer tea wins vs. its cost. It is a prime quality High Mountain Tea from a source we have come to rely on almost solely for our Alishan High Mountain Oolong. And the price is hard to beat. So if you are looking for an everyday drinker that is really quite good quality, this batch is for you!
Plum Rains Resolve Taiwan Drought
At long last, the month of June has been replete with rainy weather here in Taiwan. Taiwan's rainy season, poetically referred to as "Plum Rains", has saved us from the drought that had reached crisis conditions!
Alishan High Mountain Jin Xuan Oolong Tea Sourcing (Summer 2021)
This year's second crop of Alishan High Mountain Jin Xuan Oolong began to be harvested last week, before rains that lasted several days. Then resumed earlier this week. We first visited our primary source of Alishan High Mountain Tea to taste their first two days of summer harvest.
Wenshan Baozhong Spring Tea Sourcing Trip
Above is our choice pick of spring tea from our source of Wenshan Baozhong Tea. It was a surprisingly smooth process of choosing which day's harvest we wanted. At first, when we walked in and saw his tea table maxed out with 10 bowls of pre-brewed tea, and were invited to taste them and choose which one we want, it was rather intimidating!
Taiwan Tea Harvest Overview: Spring 2021
Here's a quick round-up of how our spring 2021 sourcing turned out. You can check the product pages of any of our teas for details and browse our blog as well! All hail Taiwan Tea!
Li Shan High Mountain Oolong Spring Tea Sourcing Trip
We are so happy to have been able to show up at the spring harvest time of our Li Shan High Mountain Oolong to really get a sense of what was happening, and also to have first dibs on the day's harvest that we saw being processed. So grateful!
Spring 2021 Harvest | Shan Lin Xi High Mountain Oolong Tea
We went up to film on the first day of spring harvest by our source of Shan Lin Xi High Mountain Oolong Tea. The early morning was sunny, but the fog rolled in early, and we were socked in by noon, diminishing our aspirations for getting lots of scenic drone footage! But this is representative of the daily weather — particularly in this micro-climate of a ravine that faces northeast.
Spring 2021 Traditional Dong Ding Oolong Making
Our friend chose to only use one pot, or tumble heater, for the fixing stage. This would make it a slower and more relaxed tea making session, while allowing the leaves that were picked later in the day to oxidize more — resulting in a more uniformly cured batch of tea.