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Taiwan produces some of the world’s best teas. Learning when, where and how to procure them only comes from many years of involvement in local tea industry and culture. Here we give you an inside look at what's entailed in bringing you some of the best of Taiwan's teas.

These leaves were brought into the factory the afternoon before we showed up at the end of February for our share of early spring Bi Luo Chun Green Tea. The raw leaves in this photo have set overnight, slowly wilting and subtly transforming in their chemical constituents. Our batch was already completely processed, having been picked and delivered to the factory the morning prior. These leaves were picked within 14 days of sprouting. And they will grow faster as spring advances. It is this earliest new spring growth that produces the finest quality Bi Luo Chun, and this year is our earliest spring procurement yet.

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.

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.

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!

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. 

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.

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.

We are very happy to finally be able to offer the pre-modern version of Dong Ding Oolong Tea! We've waited for years to source this local traditional specialty from our friend who simply has more demand than supply from his family plot of tea in Phoenix Village in Lugu Township, Taiwan. 

A few months back we were asked to give the keynote presentation at Taiwan’s Organic Tea Forum — part of the tea expo that's happening at the Taipei World Trade Center this weekend. Here we feature some of the fantastic people we've met and the stories they shared with us during our preparation for this event.

Mr. Chen had initially intended to make a more heavily oxidized, traditionally made Dong Ding Oolong style tea from this day of harvest. But due to the conditions on the day of harvest, the degree of oxidation in the leaves fell short of what is optimal for making Dong Ding Oolong. We tasted it on the day after it was processed, and appreciated the character of significantly oxidized leaves that offer a substantial composition and very balanced flavor profile which makes a pleasant and satisfying, yet less pronounced alternative to the standard character of a High Mountain Oolong. So we offered to buy the day's harvest in full, given it was only a small fraction of what is normally harvested and processed in one day.

The shelf life of tea is a common topic of discussion among tea drinkers. We often see questions such as:

• Can tea go bad?
• How do I keep my loose leaf tea fresh?
• Which teas have longer or shorter shelf lives?

Let's look at some of the factors that affect how long your tea stays fresh.