The sun shines on Taiwan’s tea growers
Print Edition
JUST after 5am, Chen Siou-cin, 60, puts on her bamboo hat and goes out to her tea garden.
Her 1.5-hectare patch is set on a low ridge in Taiwan’s Nantou County, 200 kilometers from Taipei, where Chen has been growing tea for more than 30 years.
The garden is 400 meters above sea level, an elevation usually too low for quality tea. Good tea needs plenty of rain, a fertile soil and low, diffuse sunlight — which is why the highlands outperform the plains.
But industrious tea growers in Taiwan have developed new strains over many generations that thrive at low-altitude.
Brought from the Chinese mainland just 100 years ago, tea can be seen almost everywhere in Taiwan, at altitudes ranging from 100 to over 2,200 meters.
A warm winter and late spring, and poor rainfall this year have postponed the harvest.
“We usually have it done by Qingming Festival,” said 46-year-old Chen Sung-fei.
Chen runs a small tea-processing plant. The leaves plucked by Chen Siou-cin and other tea pickers are sent there with no time wasted.
The leaves are first put in the sun to pull out the moisture, known as “sunlight wilting.” There must be plenty of sun, but not too strong, with a gentle breeze.
“If we feel comfortable, the tea leaves feel the same,” he said.
The leaves are then moved inside for a series of other steps, including fermentation, “kill-green,” rolling and drying, before being put on sale.
“It usually takes one and a half days, or two days at most to make tea from leaves,” Chen Sung-fei said.
Taiwan’s tea enjoys a good reputation, but output can’t meet demand. Taiwan exports very little tea each year, but it imported 26,000 tons, mostly from Vietnam, in 2016.
A report from the economic authority showed how deeply consumers in Taiwan love tea drinks: 1 billion cups of tea drinks were sold in 2015, with 44 cups per person a year. But not many realize they are drinking imported tea.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
