Taiwan Is Destroying Its High Mountain Oolong Tea Farms

[Judi Lynn]

Taiwan Is Destroying Its High Mountain Oolong Tea Farms

April 27, 2016 / 12:00 pm


High mountain oolong tea is one of Taiwan’s most beloved products. In comparison to its lower-altitude counterparts, it gives off extremely floral notes and has a distinctive milky aftertaste. It’s a Taiwanese national treasure, and yet the government is destroying it.

Today, virtually all high mountain oolong tea farms that are located 2,500 meters or more above sea level have been demolished.

The crop was first sown here in 1969 by Jindi Chen—the first in Taiwan to successfully plant tea at a high elevation. Chen was a peach farmer who won presidential recognition for his fruit; he was given a piece of land on Da Yu Ling, a region on Li mountain with an elevation of 2,700 meters. It was designated as an experimental place for fruit farming.

“In 1967, President Chiang Kai-Shek came over to our peach farm to pay his respects to my father. That’s how well-known our peaches were. They quickly began talking about alternative crops to plant because of Taiwan’s typhoon season, and Chiang Kai-Shek recommended that my father look into tea,” says Limei Chen, the daughter of Jindi. “It felt like an emperor giving a decree, and so my father took that suggestion wholeheartedly.” For the next three years, he experimented with high-elevation tea tree farming.

. . .



The Chen tea farm before it was razed. Photo courtesy of Limei Chen.

More:
https://munchies.vice.com/en/articles/taiwan-is-destroying-its-high-mountain-oolong-tea-farms

[Silver_Witch]

1. For perhaps a very good reason?

"

High mountain agriculture can be quite destructive; it erodes the landscape and causes harmful pesticides and fertilizers to contaminate water sources and the land. The additives also strip the soil of moisture, rendering it completely useless in a matter of decades. It’s a toxic industry; for every one pound of tea, roughly $9 USD is spent on pesticides and fertilizers. To discourage high mountain farming, in 2014, Taiwan tea researchers engineered a low-altitude tea—known as Taiwan Tea Number 22—that replicates high mountain tea aromas.

"

Seems it is quite destructive.

[scscholar]

2. Good. They were an affront to China...

that owns Taiwan.