Wild tea is rare and expensive, accounting for less than 2% of the tea market, and lacks origin certification labels, making it easy to pass off as genuine.
Someone once said that tea is like a miniskirt - its popularity comes in waves. Since Taiwan, China began its tea-making history, Baozhong, oolong, black tea, green tea, high-mountain tea and white tea have each taken turns dominating the market, and in recent years the name "wild tea" has been heard frequently. What sets it apart from discussions of ordinary teas is that wild tea is valued for its rarity and its drinking benefits, but because it is so little understood, misjudgments are common, giving speculators more room to hype it.
What exactly is wild tea? How is wild tea defined? Is the wild tea you speak of tea that grows deep in the mountains, untouched by human hands for years? Or is it simply tall, thick-trunked trees or large-leaf varieties? Or does it refer to a specific variety, "Taiwan wild tea" (Camellia formosensis）？
Native wild tea: from undervalued to hyped
It is generally assumed that all Taiwanese tea varieties were introduced from China, but even earlier than the Qing dynasty, before Ke Chao brought tea seeds to Taiwan from Fujian, the 1717 book "Zhuluo County Gazetteer" already contained records of Taiwan wild tea, showing that Taiwan had native tea varieties long ago. The biggest difference between native Taiwan wild tea and ordinary oolong tea is that wild tea is a tree, tall in form, capable of growing up to ten meters high; to pick the tea buds at the very top, one must climb the tree or a ladder.
Taiwan wild tea is distributed mainly in the central and southern parts of the island, concentrated in the four counties and cities of Nantou, Chiayi, Kaohsiung and Taitung, from Meiyuan Mountain in Nantou to Chiayi and Kaohsiung on the western side of the Central Mountain Range and the mountain areas of eastern Taitung, with the largest distribution area in Liugui, Kaohsiung. The Tea Research and Extension Station named them after their places of discovery: Meiyuan Mountain tea, Fenghuang Mountain tea, Longtou Mountain tea, Minghai Mountain tea, Nanfeng Mountain tea, Yongkang Mountain tea, Leye Mountain tea, and so on.
Only with a certain scale can one talk about a market. In terms of planting area, Liugui in Kaohsiung is the largest collecting and distributing center for Taiwan wild tea. In recent years, because of media reports, it suddenly became wildly popular; on what used to be the deserted Xinfa Street, during tea season the place is bustling with visitors. The starting price for a jin of wild tea averages around 4,000 yuan, and some prices are shouted up to over 10,000 yuan; the more expensive it is, the harder it is to snap up. Sometimes the fresh tea leaves are reserved the moment they are picked, with buyers fighting over them, all because of the emphasis on how rare and precious these fresh leaves are: "It is picked only once a year, and the amount picked each year is very uncertain - however much heaven gives, that is how much we pick!"
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