At an altitude of 2000 meters, a forest tea garden: the ultimate satisfaction of a high-mountain tea ceremony

 

 

Driving up to Lishan is an ordeal; starting from the foot of the mountains in Yilan, the endlessly winding hairpin turns, 3 hours in a state of dizziness and discomfort, and even after reaching Lishan's town center you still have to drive on again to reach the Xinsi Guangyang tribe, and all this wooziness finally gets its satisfying reward after a single sip of Lishan high-mountain oolong tea.

 

A story of searching for roots in the high-mountain homeland

 

Following Provincial Highway 7A up the mountain, then turning onto the small road leading to the Xinsi Guangyang tribe, the scenery on both sides turns into verdant tea-garden views, as if a fine green carpet has been laid over the high mountains. On the steep-sloped tea garden appears a young woman wearing a lovely smile; Guomai Tea Garden's owner Chen Wanping seems to descend together with the mountain breeze to meet us.
 

 

Because her father's passing made her realize that if she didn't return home she would lose her connection to her homeland, Wanping left the tech industry that everyone had high hopes for and returned alone to her hometown, known as a place impossibly far away, to take over her father's tea garden. At first things did not go smoothly; she understood nothing about the mountains, about latitude, or about growing tea, and because she was so far from her husband and children, "I wanted to run away the first month after coming back!" Wanping laughs as she lightly recalls the past.

 

 

The tea and the children guarded by the high-mountain forest

 

"We Atayal children don't give up easily!" That made her wipe away the tear streaks from crying secretly in the tea garden, and she began to actively take classes, work hard to look things up, and visit high-mountain tea gardens everywhere in person. Gradually, she discovered that what her father had left to her and her younger brother was an incomparably precious natural asset. "The tea garden sits right below the black forest; the pure water filtered through the forest becomes sweet dew that nourishes the tea, and the nutrient-rich soil nourishes it too. As long as the base of the tea trees is kept clean, the wind blowing up from the steep valley becomes the airy environment the tea trees love most. Of course, being at a high altitude of 2200 meters, with big temperature differences and lots of mist and clouds, is the key to good high-mountain oolong tea." Just like that, Wanping revived the name of Guomai Tea Garden, Lishan's first tea garden cultivated by Indigenous people, and through her efforts it broke into the Russian tea-tasting market, and even into the vast European market where the habit is to drink only black tea.

 

 

On this early-spring day, Wanping set out a tea ceremony in the high-mountain tea garden. Together with the tea trees, we felt the breeze sweeping up from below the mountain, and tasted tea brewed with high-mountain spring water. The first cup was pure high-mountain oolong; the second cup was the goji black tea she had blended. We listened to her tell stories of the beauty brought by the forest and of a tea country breathing together with nature, and all five senses were deeply moved.

 

 

Learning to be an Atayal tribal warrior

 

After leaving the tea garden, we still could not stop thinking about the tribal atmosphere, so we joined an itinerary carefully designed by the people of the Jiayang Community Development Association. Following the Atayal cultural tradition in which boys must learn to hunt and girls must learn to weave, an archery practice for warriors unfolded among the tribal forests and mountains, drawing the bow fully and striving to shoot arrows at the target; next came an experience of setting traps, through explanations and hands-on practice experiencing the hunter's skills in the forests and mountains.

 

 

There was also a hand-weaving course, in which, guided by the community mothers, we wove thread by thread and hole by hole our own Eye of the Ancestral Spirits. After going through all these trials, the tribal people finally applied facial-tattoo stickers symbolizing adulthood, which also meant we had passed the tempering experience of the coming-of-age ceremony!