A Fresh Tea-Experience in Sanzhi, New Taipei: Pick and Craft Your Own Signature Flavor

 

 

When it comes to Taiwanese tea, most people will think of place names like Alishan, Lishan or Pinglin and other well-known tea regions, but did you know that tea is actually also grown in Sanzhi, New Taipei, and you can even experience tea picking and tea making? Follow "Just Want to Travel" for a look.

 

Through the introduction and guidance of a local friend, we visited Su Yimin (Xiao Su), who calls himself a "middle-aged" returnee to Sanzhi. Now 52 years old, he was once a tech venture capital professional earning over a million a year, but tired of the deception and scheming of the business world, he returned from China to his hometown in 2015 and took over from the family elders a tea plantation of about 12 hectares that had been abandoned for nearly 35 years, growing tea using a natural wild-release farming method that protects the land.

Su Yimin said that although most people are unfamiliar with Sanzhi as a tea region, Sanzhi was in fact once a fairly important tea-producing area. In its heyday, this small place had as many as 6 large tea factories, supported more than 70% of Sanzhi's people, and even exported large quantities internationally, to places like Japan and Europe. But later, as traditional industries declined, after the last tea factory closed in 1980, the local tea industry declined along with it and was gradually forgotten.

 

Unwilling to Let It Decline, He Promotes Tea Culture

Because he could not bear to see the tea plantation decline, and also wanted more people to understand Sanzhi's tea culture, Su Yimin resolutely returned to Sanzhi to grow tea. Today, in addition to producing teas such as Oriental Beauty, honey-scented black tea and Longjing green tea, he has also combined tea leaves with Sanzhi's locally famous cherry blossoms to develop a season-limited "cherry blossom tea."

 

In addition, in order to continue Sanzhi's tea culture and let more people know about it, Su Yimin has also launched a tea-travel cultural experience, leading visitors to put on floral bamboo hats, carry tea baskets on their backs, and follow him into the tea plantation to feel the natural aroma woven together by the tea trees and soil in a wild-release tea garden, pick the emerald green one bud and two leaves, and bring them back to the tea factory to make their very own Sanzhi tea by hand through processes such as pan-firing, rolling and roasting.

 

Xiao Su Handmade: No. 105-1, Putouken, Sanzhi District, New Taipei City (near Sanzhi Visitor Center), 0955-229-955, fee 500 yuan (300 yuan for elementary school children and under), tours form with 15 people, book one week in advance; you can take the "Taiwan Tourist Shuttle - Crown North Coast Line" and get off at the "Sanzhi Visitor Center (Celebrity Museum)" stop, then walk about 10 minutes to arrive