Seasonal Tea — Oolong Tea

Oolong tea has become increasingly scarce. Shifts in global weather patterns combined with a large demand for oolong in Asia has soaked up the majority of the production in Southeastern China and Taiwan, the primary oolong producing areas.  Skilled, enterprising tea makers have been looking for new locations with the proper climate, soil, and elevation to produce quality tea. Unfortunately the tea industry has been slow to adopt these new growing regions, such as New Zealand, Central China, and Thailand.  The perception is that the quality isn’t there - the truth is that the quality is often abundant, but without...

Tea production in Taiwan began after a mass migration of millions of people from China during the middle of the 19th Century. Immigrants brought tea cultivars and oolong processing knowledge from Southern Fujian which evolved to produce modern oolong styles such as bai, hao, bao zhong, high mountain oolong, and iron goddess of mercy. In the past 15 years many Taiwanese tea producers have left the small, crowded island of Taiwan in search of new places to produce oolong. Thailand, and South and Central China are now home to Taiwanese tea producers looking to explore different terroir while continuing to...

The quality of a tea is determined by three primary factors: the cultivar or the specific type of tea plant, the processing steps used, and the terroir, a French term used to describe the different aspects of the environment from which it was grown. With Taiwan oolong teas it is just one aspect of terroir that garners lots of attention: The elevation at which the tea was grown. The highest grown teas are labeled goa shan cha or high mountain tea with a growing elevation of over 1000 masl. Taiwan has more mountains that produce high mountain oolongs than any...

Iron Goddess of Mercy is one of the most recognizable types of oolong - the name alone makes it memorable. Unfortunately its legacy is being tarnished to the point that tea producers of Iron Goddess from just a few decades wouldn’t be able to recognize the transformation in flavor that it has undergone in such a short period of time.  Tie quan yin, or Iron Goddess of Mercy is both a cultivar and tea process. Many different legends tell of the origin, but it’s widely accepted the tie quan yin cultivar first appeared in Anxi County in Fujian, China. Iron...

Tea production in Taiwan began after a mass migration of millions of people from China during the middle of the 19th Century. The migrants brought tea cultivars and oolong processing knowledge from Southern Fujian to Nantou, Taiwan. The style of tea produced was a medium-oxidized, medium-roasted, globe-shaped oolong that mimicked the Iron Goddess styles of tea of Southern Fujian. These teas are the roots of Taiwanese oolong production. Despite the evolving tea oolong industry, some producers make oolong tea the old way, even though it is no longer fashionable. I I however love the flavors that come from the mix...