Alishan summer red tea

I went back to the tea plantation I discovered for TF1, a French TV crew last year. The TV channel still hasn't aired the interview with the tea farmer and with me, or any picture they shot in Alishan, but I'm still happy that the opportunity arose, because the summer 2022 red tea I sourced on this trip got high marks from many tea friends! Indeed, this was the first high mountain red tea I selected in Taiwan, because its oxidation level stood out (usually it's too light, probably due to the cooler mountain weather and the skills of the tea makers who focus on partial oxidation).

Left (cut trees) vs right (growing leaves)

So, I returned full of great expectations to this tea field, but quickly noticed that it looked different (see above left and below). Instead of seeing lots of tea leaves ready to be harvested, the tea trees in the field where the red tea came from have been cut midsize. This is done once in a while to prevent the trees from growing too high and to entice the trees to produce more (valuable) leaves instead of (worthless) stems. This cut was done after the spring Oolong harvest and the next harvest will be in Oolong again, in fall. This means that the farmer won't be making any red tea from his plantation this year. 

This was the bad news. The good news (and it's very good) is that I met the farmer in his field again, without an appointment! When I asked about red tea, the farmer told me that he still has a few kg of last year's red tea batch and he agreed to sell it to me at the same price! So, it's available again on my online boutique.