In Taiwan, people are serious about their tea. I have always considered myself a coffee person, but lately I have been steadily shifting my drinking habits away from coffee to tea. Whether it is the local tea culture finally taking effect, or something else it doesn’t matter, as drinking low-fermented green tea is simply good for you.
I currently live in Hsinchu, which is not only good for high-tech but it is also within 30 minutes of some of the best tea growing mountains in the world. In an effort to make more of living in this location, last Saturday I went in search of locally produced green tea. My first stop was Guanshi (關西鎮), one of the main tea growing regions of Hsinchu, a short 30 minute drive along freeway number 3 from Hsinchu City (新竹市). I was planning to visit the Formosa Black Tea Company, which now ironically produces mainly green tea (see number 9), but forgot to download the map to my PDA. So letting fate decide, I continued to Guanshi to see what I could find.
Fate apparently was in a good mood that day. Guanshi is a small town, we managed to drive straight through it in about 5 minutes and head out towards the river without seeing my intended target. Just as we were about to cross the river we discovered King Tai Tea Factory. We initially drove past the factory as it is situated on a bend just before the river. Thankfully when we arrived, the Taiwan tour bus packed Taiwan grandmothers we saw as we first drove past were just finishing up their visit. So for the next hour and a half we had the place to ourselves, and what’s more the proprietor Mr. Rodger Lo (not Rodger More as he reminded us, nudge-nudge-wink-wink) was very friendly and spoke excellent English. He sat us down with, I’m guessing, the rest of the extended Lo family and proceeded to enlighten us on the benefits of drinking tea and healthy living. So the first thing he tells us is that he and his family are not Taiwanese, but Hakanese. I expected this as Hsinchu County is known to be home to a strong Hakka community. Hakka are a minority Chinese ethnic group on the island, with a culture and language distinct from that of the majority Hoklo. It also turns out that all members of the Lo family live a very long time, in fact no one has died younger than 95. What’s the secret I asked ? Answer: the fresh mountain air of Guanshi and drink plenty of Tea, of course!
The King Tai Tea Factory has been owned by the Lo family since 1936, and it turns out that Mr. Lo’s uncle owns the Formosa Black Tea Company. Make no mistake, I am a Tea novice, so I was eager to gather more pertinent tea information. My own preference is green tea, I find the herbal flavour quite pleasant. After initially discussing tea preferences we were first introduced to a low fermented green tea. According to Mr. Lo, all teas are produced from the same tea plant, it is the different levels of fermentation and processing methods which result in the different kinds of tea. So oolong tea and black tea are just fermented longer than green tea. Any kind of fermented tea will be referred to as oolong tea, the one we tried first was only 10% fermented. The resulting flavour was smooth but not too strong. Next we tried pure green tea, no fermentation. The shape of this tea, the individual leaves, when dried are referred to in Chinese as “eyebrow” shaped tea. The flavour is more raw and herbal. I prefer this flavour but was told that drinking un-fermented tea is too stimulating and that I should stick to fermented teas. Chinese culture seems to be obsessed by they idea that foods that are too stimulating are bad for your health. This idea I suspect stems from Chinese medical tradition, thus the appropriate response is to nod and smile like a foreigner. I also insisted we try Oriental Beauty tea, which Hsinchu is apparently famous for. It is a darker tea that has a hint of honey flavour. Mr. Lo’s brother explained that this unique flavour is due to the tea being bitten by a specific kind of insect. I later discovered the insect was a kind of criquet called a tea jassid, according to the Tea Masters blog.
During our tea drinking session we learnt a little more about Mr. Lo and the tea factory. He was a Pharmacist in a previous life (both Chinese and Western - I asked), studying at both Hsinchu medical college and also in Kaoshiang. The tea factory was still active, but we didn’t get a chance to tour where the tea was fermented and processed, however I could see the machines out the back. We also had various other tea products foisted on us during this time, including a 62 year old tea which actually smelt 62 years old. I suspect that all these products were brought out as part of a regular routine that Mr. Lo does with his customers, including the crack about being Mr. Lo, not More. One of these products was some kind of lemon processed with Chinese herbs. Whatever they do to it turns the lemon black and very hard, requiring Mr. Lo to produce a nasty looking blade to chop it up for brewing into tea. Apparently this lemon tea is good for your concentration, one sniff can make you stay away for hours, really!
All in all, not a bad way to spend a few hours on a hot saturday afternoon. We ended up buying small amounts of all the tea we tried, including the lemon tea. If you’re driving up towards Taipei via freeway three, I highly recommend making a side trip to Guanshi for a an hour or so and have Tea with Mr. Lo. You might want to call ahead and check if there any tour buses full of Taiwan grandmothers stopping in 