Beautifully Ugly: Freshly harvested Taiwan Beauty young leaves, bitten by leaf hoppers.
Fluffing tea by hand, by Teance
Unforgettable
At what point in one’s tea drinking life, when one says, enough, this tea is far too ridiculously good and I can not live this down ever again? For today, I grew afraid that after drinking the 2nd place Taiwan Beauty winner, I might have to quit drinking tea, for fear that nothing will ever compare again. Once ridiculed as ‘pong fong cha’, or bullshit tea, this oolong invented in 1929 by a Hakka…
Taiwan Beauty
Wild Ginger Flowers
A time capsule
Here in Wenshan, Mr. Lee, our Baochong farmer, keeps bees and collects the tea seeds to crush for oil. The bees will harvest the pollen from the tea flowers and they will be particularly sweet this year. The tea flowers were plentiful and one can suck on the pollen, like honeysuckle. Mr. Chen makes his Jia Long Oolong, and his wife deep fries some super delicious tea leaf tempura and makes a wild…