Great teas grow on foggy high mountains of constant moisture, cool air, and steep slopes. Asian tea aficionados understand it- so they line up for the daily lots. It is hard to compete against local buyers who ascend the mountain daily to taste the batches, or worse- the preorders from the Chinese mainlanders who have the purchasing power to buy every, single, drop of the great Taiwan teas. Our tour group, in particular our store manager who came on this trip, gets a taste of just how competitive the situation is and what some of the manuvering had to take place. Little, or big mountains, are moved sometimes.
A small batch of the first winter High Mountain Light Roast was purchased/wrestled from another buyer. How specifically, are the trade secrets I can no longer share on this blog! Not that others can do it even if the information was divulged.
In any case folks, that excellent small batch of High Mountain Light Roast– made today (10/20)- is available for pre-order at the shop and online. We didn’t make it to Dayuling (2500 meters elevation) this trip but I will be getting my preset quota, and not a drop more. So folks, preorder away. That’s the only way to get some of these teas now. When you are dealing with buyers as formidable as the ones from mainland ‘clean-sweep-with-corruption-money’ China, you are looking at being marginalized as tea aficionados very quickly.
But then again, ignorant teabag consumption is bliss?
