Teas from Taiwan

Peaking at 2200 meters above sea level, Lishan is the third highest mountain in the Lishan Range. The garden from which this tea is harvested lies at approximately 2000 meters (6500 feet) above sea level, an elevation that yields temperate weather in the summer and light snow fall in the... →

Black tea crafting in Taiwan was initiated by the Japanese in 1903. In 1926, the first Assam cultivar was introduced and planted around the hills of Sun Moon Lake in Nantou County. This lake’s climate, environment, and terroir was deemed the most similar to the Assam tea gardens of India.... →

Jin Xuan, meaning "Golden Lily" in Chinese, is a relatively new Formosa cultivar developed by Taiwan's Tea Research and Extension Station in the early 1980s. This cultivar is the end result of nearly four decades of cross-breeding several Formosa varieties to yield a tea with a naturally milky taste, distinct in character from the traditional cultivars of our... →

A reserve-grade harvest of one of our most popular teas, Native Cultivar Reserve is bright, fruity, and naturally sweet, with a honey-like finish that dances on the palate. It took us over four years of focused sourcing to find a crop that met our standards for quality and taste, eventually leading us to... →

One of four Formosa Reds from a tea garden located just outside Yu-chih Village, in the hills surrounding Sun Moon Lake, Nantou County, Taiwan. This is a pure-stock Assam, brought to Taiwan in the first half of the 20th century by the colonial Japanese in an effort to develop a... →

Wenshan, the range of mountains that surround Taipei in northern Taiwan produces a type of oolong that is twisted rather than rolled. It's a crafting style that hearkens to an earlier time in tea making, and actually predates the rolled oolongs for which Taiwan is known. Called Baozhongs or "Pouchongs",... →

Until the mid-1980s, Taiwan oolong teas were rolled by hand in small canvas bundles. Hand rolling produced tea clusters that were looser than what is created using modern machine rolling methods. These looser clusters required firing at higher temperatures for optimal preservation, which in turn produced a richer, more robust... →

A descendent of oolong varieties taken from Jian'ou in China's Fujian Province, Tung Ting was brought to the eponymous central Taiwan mountain in the mid-1800s. Its name means "frozen summit", in reference to what was, at the time, one of the highest elevation tea gardens in Taiwan. Today, tea is... →