Pingko Tea Breaks the Low-Altitude, No-Good-Tea Impression, Showcasing the Terroir of the Southernmost Border

 

 

The special geographical and environmental conditions make Pingko Tea's flavor particularly unique.

 

The "famous saying" from tea industry textbooks, "No good tea from low mountains," has long influenced the judgment of consumers in Taiwan, China. However, can a low-altitude geographical location really not produce delicious tea?

 

Arriving in Pingtung, the southernmost border of Taiwan, China, the hot summer wind seems to steam people dry, with beads of sweat continuously oozing from the sweat glands of the skin. On this scorching Hengchun Peninsula, does anyone really drink hot tea?
 

 

The Special Flavor of Hybrid and Seed-Grown Tea

Pingko Tea is the southernmost tea region on the main island of Taiwan, China. Pingko Tea has several famous characteristics: low altitude, low latitude, long sunshine hours, and strong sea winds (the signature falling wind). When general tourists enter Pingko Village in Manzhou Township, Pingtung, they often see the three characters "hybrid tea" on roadside utility poles or on the walls of nearby mud-brick houses. With a quick glance, they might mutter to themselves: "Why is it so inelegant? Is it cursing someone? What kind of tea is this anyway?"

 

Arriving at Zhu Jincheng's tea garden, the red characters "Authentic Pingko Tea" are boldly inscribed on the wall. The tea garden claims a history of nearly a hundred years. Zhu Jincheng, with silver-white hair, is 74 years old this year. His tea garden is the most iconic location for Pingko Tea, located on a hillside at an altitude of 60-100 m, about 200 m from the sea. He told me that because the weather is hot, the tea leaves grow particularly fast, and they can be picked ten times a year. Some people therefore doubt the quality of the tea. However, Zhu Jincheng pinched the tea leaves and said to me: "Feel the thickness of these tea leaves."

 

 

Zhu Jincheng, now past seventy, has been making tea since his youth and is quite familiar with the production of Pingko Tea.

 

Most people do not know that scorching Pingtung also produces tea, or those who are fascinated by "high-mountain flavor" often dismiss low-altitude tea regions as unworthy of mention. The history of Pingko Tea can be traced back nearly 200 years to a tea-loving scholar (county magistrate). The earliest tea varieties introduced here from mainland China were: Xueli, Wuyi, and Qingxin Oolong.

 

The so-called "hybrid tea" refers to tea made from four varieties picked together: Xueli, Wuyi, Qingxin Oolong, and the subsequently improved Jinxuan (No. 27) tea variety from Taiwan, China. Perhaps because it is located in a remote rural area with low production, the tea varieties have never been improved by modern tea industry techniques. This unimproved tea variety has now become a unique variety found nowhere else in Taiwan, China. According to the tea farmers, in recent years visiting personnel from the Tea Research and Extension Station even hoped that Pingko Tea in Pingtung would maintain its characteristics just as they are.

 

Another characteristic of Pingko Tea is its emphasis on seed-grown tea (seedling tea), meaning the tea trees are grown from seeds. The advantage of seed-grown tea is its rich flavor, but the disadvantage is that seed growth has high variability, and due to genetic diversity, quality is either particularly good or easily deteriorates. For the capitalist business model that demands stable quality and large-scale production, Pingko Tea has no advantage in this regard.

 

 

Overlooking Pingko Stream and the Bashi Channel from the tea garden.

 

Pingko Tea Growing Strong Under the Falling Wind

Why does Pingko Tea insist on being grown from seeds? Actually, this is also out of necessity. Another tea farmer, Zhu Songxiong, said that in the past, people here also tried growing tea by cuttings or layering, but cutting seedlings have no taproot. When hit by the strong falling wind, they topple in every direction, and the seedlings die before they can grow strong. But if they are seed-grown seedlings, whether strong winds come or drought with no rain, tea seedlings grown this way are very tolerant and can survive.

 

The wind is too strong, making it hard for tea trees to grow, but there is one particular benefit: no fear of pests. "Because the wind is too strong, even insects cannot stand their ground and get blown away, so no pesticides are used here!" Zhu Jincheng grabbed a handful of fallen leaves from the ground and told me that besides no pesticides, no chemical fertilizers are applied in the tea garden. The tea trees get most of their nutrients from local fallen branches and leaves, and occasionally people deliberately gather five-node silvergrass and rotten wood to increase the fertility of the tea garden soil.

 

The Hengchun Peninsula has a particularly long summer and an indistinct winter, with an average annual temperature of 28.3°C. Tea buds sprout very quickly, and tea can be picked from six to ten times a year. Tea is harvested in all four seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. However, because the tea region is limited in area, annual production is not large. Even so, every tea-picking season, this place faces the same problem as tea regions across Taiwan, China: no tea pickers to be found. "Ours is a rural place. Add up the ages of three tea-picking 'girls' and it exceeds two hundred years, and we often still cannot find workers." The weather is hot, tea leaves grow very fast, and if not picked for three to five days, the tea leaves become old. If not harvested in time, they lose their harvesting value. So he does not conceal that when labor is short during tea season, they often rely on the "family visit groups" of Vietnamese foreign spouses to help work.

 

Finding a Way Out from Limitations

Is Pingko Tea delicious? Many people have always had a mistaken impression of Pingko Tea: bitter, astringent, heavy in taste, and only for old people! Besides novelty-seeking, why would anyone want to taste this "bitter" flavor? The biggest external characteristic of Pingko Tea is a misty layer on the surface. Some say it is sea wind, some say it is the result of heavy roasting, but others say it is caused by fungi. "Light fermentation, heavy roasting" is one of the tea-making characteristics of Pingko Tea.

 

 

The surface of Pingko Tea has a misty layer.

 

A tea farmer told me that his great-grandfather once said: "It does not matter if people suffer bitterness, but tea must not be bitter!" People in the tea world often say, "If it is not bitter and not astringent, it is not tea." Actually, what is emphasized is not the word "bitter," but the sweet aftertaste after bitterness. There are actually some tricks to brewing Pingko Tea. The tea farmer taught me that it must be brewed with boiling water at high temperature, but the time cannot be too long. Brew quickly at high temperature, and it is very resistant to multiple infusions. In the early days, the consumer group for Pingko Tea was limited to southern Taiwan, China, with heavier tastes and an older age group. It was so-called "old people's" tea. But in fact, there are now quite a few young consumers as well, with many repeat customers. Once they drink it, they seem addicted and stuck on it.

 

 

The brewing method of Pingko Tea also involves knowledge.

 

But Pingko Tea, with its special flavor, once faced a crisis of disappearance. Zhu Jincheng said that when he was young, he could make two to three hundred jin a day. Zhu Songxiong said that in the past, Pingko Village had about twenty tea shops, but today only about four tea shops truly have an integrated production, processing, and sales operation, and most still must rely on contract-grown tea leaves (contracting nearby tea fields) to achieve decent scale production. More people hand tea leaves to equipped tea factories for processing on their behalf.

 

Although the production of Pingko Tea is not large, a trip through Pingko Village reveals that each tea shop's "Pingko Tea" has its own merits. Some focus on green tea, while others follow the traditional oolong tea line. Recently, black tea and white tea have become popular in the market, and this place is not absent from that either. Some follow market tastes, while others stand uniquely apart, wanting to make an authentic Pingko Tea that others cannot imitate.

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For example, Yunfa Hao has revived an ancient hand-wrapped tea, simply packaged in two sheets of white paper, stamped with a vermilion clay square seal, and tied with rush grass. The antique flavor of Pingko Tea emerges vividly. Besides packaging, Yunfa Hao further emphasizes that its Pingko Tea is a blend of individual plants, with rich layers of flavor. The tea from Shunxing Tea Garden follows a popular taste easily accepted by the general market, and its tea ice cream made with Pingko Tea is quite popular among tourists. Yixin Tea Garden, besides making tea, also makes tea baozi, tea cookies, and cold-brewed tea, and works with the Pingko community to promote tea-scented mini-tours, integrating tea into community eco-tours, bringing tourists to know their hometown, enjoy the sunset from Pingko Stream and the Bashi Channel, and tour the beauty of Kenting National Park. Every year during the October National Day holiday, the southern tip is packed with crowds wanting a glimpse of the "National Day bird," the grey-faced buzzard, and Pingko Tea becomes a popular terroir souvenir.

 

 

Yunfa Hao's vermilion clay square seal.

 

To be serious about it, Manzhou Township in Pingtung really is not a good place to grow tea. Here the falling wind blows for half the year, the temperature is especially hot, and besides climatic factors, there is limited land and an aging population. But who says only large-scale production can have a way out? Today's Pingko Tea does not feel inferior to others at all. "What Grandpa sells is not altitude and sweetness; what Grandpa sells is character." It clearly and loudly declares to the world that its altitude is simply low (about 100 m) and its distance from the sea is simply close (about 200 m). The tea leaves let people smell and taste a hint of sea flavor. That is the distinctive local flavor of the Pacific and the falling wind.

 

Drinking tea is drinking a flavor of terroir. Tea produced under different geographical altitudes and climatic conditions each has its own characteristics. Besides being a tasting adventure for the palate, Pingko Tea also challenges our breadth of mind and understanding of tea.