Wild Liugui mountain tea is like red wine, with both floral aroma and bitter notes, and stronger antioxidant power than green tea

General News Jan 1, 1970 0 views

Wild Liugui mountain tea is like red wine, blooming with flavors according to each region's terroir, with both floral aroma and bitter notes, and antioxidant capacity surpassing green tea

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(Continued from the previous article) Besides mango, wax apple and green bamboo shoots, mountain tea is now Liugui's most eye-catching cash crop, and has even become the representative image of the entrance to Liugui District. Xinta Community is an immigrant community with considerable ties to tea, and among its residents are many newcomers from the famous tea regions of Lugu in Nantou and Alishan in Chiayi. In fact, as early as twenty years ago, Liugui was a tea region producing mainly Jinxuan, known for its milky aroma, and pouchong oolong; on the merely two-kilometer stretch of Xinta Street there were ten to twenty tea shops and tea factories, but after Typhoon Morakot, the tea fields were damaged and the industry struggled to recover, falling silent for quite a while.

After the 2009 typhoon disaster, the Liugui area was left with everything to rebuild, and Taiwan mountain tea was brought out from the ruins to revive the local economy. Does that sound a little familiar? It is similar to the story of Ruby black tea rising unexpectedly in Nantou after the 921 earthquake. Ruby not only rescued the local tea industry in Nantou, but also unexpectedly sparked another boom for Taiwan black tea.

The reason for its overnight success is generally believed to be the excellence of the TTES No. 18 (Ruby) cultivar, yet in fact Ruby was bred as early as 1951 and was only brought out as a miracle cure for reviving the local economy after the 1999 earthquake. A closer analysis shows that Ruby's success was actually the result of cooperation among industry, government and academia, including the then township head combining local administrative resources, corporate adoption, and the support of the government (Tea Research and Extension Station) and scholars. So can Liugui mountain tea also have such a chance for bold, sweeping change?

Liu Shih-fu and his father, Master Ahua, work seamlessly together from tea-making to marketing; the continuity of Taiwan's tea industry largely relies on sons inheriting their fathers' trade (photo / Su Mu)

Wild mountain tea lacks guidance, tea farmers say: "We all rely on ourselves"

"After Typhoon Morakot, the first grant money was used to buy machines for making mountain tea." Lin Tsai-e, who runs a mountain tea and coffee farm in the Tengchih Group 2 area, recalled. Currently there are about six relatively large tea factories on Xinta Street, handling contracted processing such as tea-making, roasting and packaging, and apart from the few tea farmers who have their own tea gardens and can make tea themselves, the majority, about thirty, specialize in growing tea and selling fresh tea leaves.

On a first visit to Liugui to look into mountain tea, one often hears tea farmers say that no one manages or guides them here? Some even thought it should be the responsibility of the Yuchi Tea Research and Extension Station in Nantou? Counting on one's fingers, the Tea Research and Extension Station has five branch stations across Taiwan from south to north (Yangmei main station, Wenshan, Yuchi in Nantou, Taitung, and Dongding work station), yet Liugui happens to sit at a distance from every one of them, separated from Taitung by a mountain and a one-to-two-hour drive from Nantou. Regarding guidance for the tea industry, the complaint one often hears from tea farmers is, "Ah! We all rely on ourselves!"

Is native mountain tea really a project worth promoting as a priority? Early last year, Lee Yung-te, chairman of the Hakka Affairs Council, went south to Liugui to visit tea farmers, hoping to provide some assistance, and the Kaohsiung Agriculture Bureau also visited Liugui several times to hold meetings, stating that it planned to promote Taiwan mountain tea with a budget of 45 million. But some people think that Liugui mountain tea has not yet built up its basic skills, and that money pouring in at this point is actually not a good thing! What is needed at this stage may not be funding, but direction.

Should it be cultivated on a large scale?

Hsu Sheng-yang, who returned home two years ago, is the third generation of Xinyuan Tea Factory; his father rents land in Baoshan and manages tea growing and tea-making himself, and the tea quality is good but follows a budget-friendly route. After returning home, Hsu Sheng-yang did not focus on tea manufacturing and sales; what he wants to pursue is origin tourism under the six-sector industry model, using various tea-picking and tea-making experience programs to introduce travelers to Liugui's tea region, and also developing various tea products such as tea soap, tea biscuits, snacks and cleansing oil.

Wen Chung-liang, executive director of the Meinong Rural Field Association, said that large-scale mass production is by no means the way out for Liugui mountain tea, and that it certainly should not follow the old path of single-crop, large-scale planting; mountain tea should instead be treated as an important resource and attraction for local revitalization.

The potential of Taiwan mountain tea deserves in-depth scientific research

Native mountain tea, discovered in the wild, belongs to tall trees and possesses an innate ability to grow wild, with deep roots that grip the soil and play a good role in soil and water conservation; it suits a semi-shaded growing environment and is also extremely well suited to the "under-forest economy" policy the government currently wants to promote.

Lin Wen-chih, associate researcher at the Liugui Research Center of the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, said that in addition to setting up a mountain tea seedling nursery, the institute has also established a seed collection garden and a cutting collection garden in the mountains, conducting long-term research and observation on mountain tea; in 2018 it joined the "under-forest economy" project of the Forestry Bureau and Pingtung University of Science and Technology, planting mountain tea seedlings by cuttings under retired Jinhuang mango trees. Cuttings are a practical method that does not disturb the mountain forest, yet allows stable mass production to meet market demand, and Taiwan mountain tea is very likely to be listed as one of the next wave of approved crops on the positive list for the "under-forest economy."

The composition of tree-type mountain tea differs from that of shrub tea; besides emphasizing a return to nature, its health benefits are mostly discussed in terms of its rich intrinsic components, with high catechins and low amino acids, pectin, trace elements, anthocyanins... but for all the talk, a scientific basis is still needed for support. "When ordinary people promote Liugui mountain tea, if they only talk about organic and wild-grown, emphasizing that mountain tea needs no pesticides or fertilizers and is a very precious tea type, such confidence is still not enough." Local elder Chu Wen-tung spoke earnestly and repeatedly stressed: "More in-depth research should be done on Taiwan mountain tea; that is the way out for mountain tea!"

The rarity of native mountain tea draws tea enthusiasts up the mountains to seek it out (photo / Su Mu)

Liugui tea has stronger antioxidant capacity than ordinary green tea

Chou Fu-san, distinguished research fellow at the Liugui Research Center of the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, has long taken Taiwan mountain tea as his research topic and plans to set up sample plots at various sites where native mountain tea has been found, such as Meiyuan Mountain in Nantou; in recent years he has devoted himself to collecting samples of various fresh tea leaves and conducting analyses of chemical composition and antioxidant activity, with quite encouraging results.

In May last year, the Liugui Research Center of the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute issued a press release titled "Liugui tea has stronger antioxidant capacity than ordinary green tea," confirming the health benefits of Taiwan mountain tea. Associate researcher Lin Wen-chih believes that native mountain tea's characteristic flavors vary greatly, and that research should be done to subdivide the strains into Taiwan Mountain Tea No. 1, Taiwan Mountain Tea No. 2, and No. 3.

Master Lo Jung-yu explains the growth conditions of mountain tea: its needs for water, nutrients and shade differ somewhat from traditional oolong cultivars (photo / Su Mu)

Single-origin mountain tea creates unique business opportunities

Tree tea is also called big-tree tea; the big-tree tea most people have drunk is most commonly Yunnan's pu-erh tea, and in Taiwan, apart from Assam black tea whose tea trees have already been dwarfed, so-called big-tree tea should refer to wild native Taiwan mountain tea.

The first time one drinks Liugui mountain tea, judging by flavor and by the suitability of the tea type for processing, one feels that black tea should be the best option; the high pectin content of mountain tea, unlike ordinary small-leaf oolong tea, is also a major challenge in tea-making technique. But in recent years, through the dedicated study of tea masters and the exchange of experience from outsiders, Liugui mountain tea is no longer the inexperienced newcomer it once was.

In the early days, locals in Liugui actually divided tea only roughly into green and red types, but tea can be divided into six major categories: "red, yellow, green, green, white and black" (note), and in recent years white tea has also become a fairly popular option in Liugui. On the most recent visit, it was discovered that operators had already put their minds to pressing mountain tea into tea cakes, taking the aged-tea route, waiting for time to mellow it, so that the longer it is stored the more its value is preserved and the better its flavor becomes.