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Taiwan Beauty is special. It can not happen without those tiny…

Rare Teas

Taiwan Beauty is special. It can not happen without those tiny cicadas called Leaf Hoppers. Though this style of tea was discovered by accident, today, a whole different way of agriculture to production method, has been devised to create a tea that is a confluence of nature’s conditions. But some outrageous requirements remain that pushes this tea to the edge of impossibility. 70-80 year olds are the only ones dexterous and experienced enough to harvest the top grades, particularly for the competition. Read- some 50 or more years of experience required. Then, every single precious leaf has to be intact without breakage during processing, a crucial aspect of which is the hand oxidation. That takes more than years of experience and skill- it requires talent and extremely sensitive hands. But the difficulty of the production of Taiwan Beauty is in the overwhelming heat under which it is produced. As the top producer of this tea says: it is not a tea that a human can endure to make. So, we savored every drop today.

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Superwoman Miss Lin met a woe this year. Seems like, many people…

Tea Adventures

Superwoman Miss Lin met a woe this year. Seems like, many people are having an unsmooth year. Her tea production facility burned down 1 month ago and we arrived to see her making tea in her bonsai garden. Elegant, calm, and unruffled always, we had a fantastic dinner, some of her second place winner Taiwan Beauty tea, and marvel at her pluck- she is going to reconstruct her facility and add a classroom for tourists to try their hand at making tea themselves next year. That spirit is classic for the Hakka tribal people like her- about 100 years ago, when the bugs completely ravaged his crop, the undaunted Hakka tribesman made a fantastic, unique tea with the damaged leaves, turning it into one of the tea treasures on earth- the Taiwan Beauty oolong.

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The best batches of Taiwan Beauty tea are harvested in the…

Tea Adventures

The best batches of Taiwan Beauty tea are harvested in the hellish days of mid summer, at scorching, humid, oven-like temps. The humidity makes one unable to bat an eyelash because that motion alone will induce torrential downpours of sweat. I refuse to go to Taiwan in the summer. Yet, facing the last day of harvest, the best batches all but sold out and the cooler autumn slanted sun bring no cicadas to bite the leaves, I have to settle for what remains.

After tasting through crops from May, June, and as recent as yesterday’s harvest, we settled on a very limited batch from early June- sweet and spicy with classic Taiwan Beauty fragrance. Problem: less than 10#s only.

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Miss Lin, the super woman tea master of Taiwan Beauty says -’ for…

Tea Adventures

Miss Lin, the super woman tea master of Taiwan Beauty says -’ for almost 80 years we have all been trying to adhere to new agricultural standards- organic , etc. But all that means is that we are constantly just defending that we are clean. There is nothing about quality.’ An excellent point that I hope American consumers can hear. She has converted her farm to the motto’ Returning to Our Roots’ ( pun!) -ancient ways of communing with nature and observing and working with how the tea plants respond to nature. For example, they dig to see how deep the roots can grow (1 meter deep for these small bushes!) if they train it not to rely on irrigation. The tea bushes are super tough plants. They will grow really deep roots for water if they can’t get them on the surface. As a result , her bushes can weather draught or heavy typhoons. Overly cared for bushes with adequate irrigation? The roots do not grow deep and they die at the first sign of weather change.
I guess that’s true of people too, whether one has built one’s character to tough out all situations and adversities….

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