The weather is finally starting to turn towards winter. In Taiwan, it’s hot from April until about
the beginning of December, sometimes even longer. But here we are in the last week of November and the weather is
starting to become like winter weather.
That means it’s time to start brewing hot tea again.
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| Cha Li Wang the Tea of Kings |
I don’t like to drink hot tea in the summer. I want something cold and refreshing, so I usually drink Cha Li
Wang brand tea. (Cha Li Wang means Tea
Inside King). It’s not like the tea that
you find in stores in the U.S. I like
to get unsweetened oolong tea, but you can hardly find that in the States. All the bottled teas have fake lemon flavor
or too much sugar or Aspartame in them.
They have a sweet after taste.
But here you can get unsweetened bottled tea that contains nothing but
that delicious Oolong goodness. I love
to drink that in the summer. Think of
it; a cold sweating bottle of clear crisp Oolong Tea without the additives and
sugar. It’s delicious.
But when the weather starts to turn cooler and wetter, I want hot
tea. That’s the way I started to feel
last week, so I took a trip to Union Tea Company in Bade, Taiwan. Bade (pronounced Bah Duh) is right next to
Taoyuan City and it is the location of the Home Office of Union Tea.
Taiwan grows some of the finest tea in the world. Conditions in the mountains are perfect for
growing tea. A good oolong tea is grown
above 2800 meters (9100 feet) and the air temperature must fluctuate ten
degrees Celsius between afternoon and night.
Buying tea in the U.S. is nothing special. You walk into Walmart or your local grocery store and pick up a
pack right off the shelf. The tea is
usually blended and in bags. It’s also
fairly low quality. I have never liked
tea bag tea. But in Taiwan buying tea
is special. You walk into the shop tell
the shopkeeper whether you want green, black or oolong tea and they brew a
number of teas for you to try so you can select the tea you prefer. A trip to
the tea dealer is a fun and interesting time.
The process of tasting tea is interesting. First the shopkeeper pours hot water over all of the evaluation
cups and spoons. An evaluation cup is a
shallow white cup. It is important to
be able to see the color of the tea.
Warming the cups up allows the flavor of the tea to be quickly
released.
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| Front: Black Tea leaves: Rear: Notice the way the Green Tea is rolled |
The she will pour the tea leaves to be evaluated into a brewing
cup. Green and oolong tea are usually
rolled into tight balls, while black tea is in the leaf shape. When the vacuum seal bag of tea is opened
sometimes the dealer will offer it to you to smell. Finally one hundred degree Celsius water is poured into the
evaluation cup. And the tea is allowed
to brew for a short time. While it is
brewing the dealer will take a ceramic spoon and dip it into the tea and offer
it to you to sniff and smell the fragrance of the brewed tea. As it finishes brewing she will spoon some
of the tea into the evaluation cup and then use the spoon to hold the leaves out
and pour in the rest. The color may be
evaluated at this point. Black tea,
which is called Hong Cha, in Chinese, (red tea), should be a red color in the
evaluation cup. Green and oolong tea
will be yellow in the evaluation cup but can be more of a honey color depending
on the oven temperature during the curing process: The higher the oven temperature the deeper the color.
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| Notice the beautiful red color of the tea on the left. |
Then you taste the tea and decide which you would like to purchase. The process usually lasts around an hour and
is very enjoyable.
I don’t think a company like Union tea can survive just on customers
like my wife and I. They sell tea in
large quantities to exporters and the like.
In fact, on our last visit we met a man who is the biggest exporter of
Taiwanese tea to the nation of Brazil, as well as Malaysia and other Asian
countries. If you’re in the market for
high-quality tea, Union Tea has a wide variety of types and prices. Good quality tea sells for about $30.00 USD for six hundred grams. High quality tea can be brewed about four times.
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| "The Best in the World" $90,000 USD for 600 grams |
Union
Tea does have a tea that was voted, “Best in the World” in a competition
involving tea from sixty-five countries.
That tea is available to be purchased for about Three Million NTD or
$90,000 USD for 600 grams. I love to drink tea, but I think I'm going to have to pass on the $90,000 tea.
Keep Watching the Taiwan Adventure for an exciting announcement.
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| Michell Lu with the tools of her trade: Union Tea Company |
Other posts you may be interested in:
Taiwanese Traditions: Selling and Brewing Tea
The Union Tea Company Website
