Chinese New Year Day is not a day of rest for everybody in Taiwan. Commercial activity thrives on that day. This is particularly the case in our small tea-making village of Songboling up on the western edge of the Bagua ridge in central Taiwan. Many families from the surrounding cities flock-up to our village making the population swell 10 folds. And on beautiful sunny days like this year, if feels more like 20 times! What are they here for? To visit our famous temple, first and foremost, but at the same time enjoy a leisurely stroll on the main street of our picturesque village while nibbling on the many street food offerings from all the vendors lining up the street, or maybe perhaps trek down the 400 m ridge to go and visit the colony of Formosan macaques that inhabit the escarpment. Whatever brings you here on that day, our shop owners and other enterprising folks are happy to find a way to get you to spend some of the money received from those red envelopes handed out the night before.
Last May 24th, we were graced with a beautiful full moon night in our little tea making village of Songboling, on the edge of the Baguashan ridge in Nantou County. Coincidentally, this was also a busy night in the village, not in the bars (there are none) or in other hangouts, but in the tea making workshops all lined-up next to each other along the Main Street. All the ground levels of the typical 3 story concrete dwellings that make up the street were lit-up and workers were busy feeding the chirping drum heaters, dryers and ball rolling machines required to process and make Taiwan oolong tea. In one of those workshops, a special tea was being made: it was ours. Made from leaves freshly picked earlier that day from our recently acquired fields of Si Ji Chun bushes, it was now in the skillful hands of the Yi family to turn it into a finished tea. Follow-us today as we give a chronological account in pictures and video on the making of our Four Seasons Oolong Tea, Lot 244 and pay a well-deserved homage to the people that make your tea.
Today we introduce a new category of postings called: Meet the tea makers. Most of our followers will have noticed that there is not so much space on our site devoted to long exposés on how such and such a tea tastes, or even worse, on how it should taste. We let our teas do the talking and convincing, or reviewers and bloggers give their unbiased opinions on the subject. Nor do we have, or will ever have, a section called “tea knowledge”. We believe tea is not something that can be taught. It needs to be experienced, and one must follow his own path at its own pace in his or her journey in discovering the pleasures of tea. There are different levels to this enjoyment, from casual to more ceremonial, and we don’t put any of these expressions above the other. Again, the concepts of right or wrong in the way one enjoys his tea has no bearing on the pleasure one experiences in drinking it. Enhancing this pleasure is, and will always remain, our fundamental guideline at Taiwan tea Crafts. We believe the best way we can do this is to be as transparent as possible by emphasizing accessibility to the best teas and proposing the most unbiased information about them. This is why we don’t splash our faces everywhere on the site, nor do we waste your time in imposing our wisdom on the subject. if this is you cup of tea,there are already many who do this if you like this kind of approach, and there is certainly no need for another one here. Our aim is to be the best conduit possible between you and the Taiwanese people, culture and land that bring you such exceptional teas. We will admit to one thing though: we are biased about Taiwan and we tend to use many superlatives when talking about anything from this island. Please see in this tendency nothing more than a mere expression of our enthusiasm and love for this country and its people, and a passion for our work here at Taiwan Tea Crafts.
This being said, giving space on our website to present some of the people responsible for the teas we propose and make available to you was the next natural step for us. And to launch this series, we chose the hardest person to present as he has become a good friend of ours, Mr. Gao, the maker behind our Lishan High Mountain Spirit Oolong Tea. If you wish to follow us, let’s travel together in words and pictures up to his village in the Lishan range, as we did last Fall to pick-up our Winter Lot from him.
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