2025 Spring Oolong harvests

Chang Shu Hu top (Alishan)

One thing I learned in 20 years of selecting spring teas for my online boutique: every year is different! Two years ago, an early heat in late March 'burned' the Jinxuan Oolong in Alishan. The farmers were unable to make fresh Jinxuan, but the conditions improved in time for the Qingxin Oolong harvests. The year 2021 was so dry that water trucks had to bring water from the North to the Center of the island as the Sun Moon Lake almost completely dried up! 

This year, we had a very cold winter that lasted longer than usual in the spring. Fewer Dong Pian (= winter petal) Oolong were made during this cold winter. It even snowed on tea plantations in the Lishan area this winter. Snow helps the tea, because the trees require more energy to wake up from their winter sleep. Tea leaves behave quite human like. They give their best performance when they are subjected to some (reasonable) stress! Tea trees growing on slopes produce more concentrated aromas than leaves growing on flat surfaces (all other things equal). The slope means that water is drained faster and trees need to grow deeper roots to find water, thereby absorbing more nutrients. But too much stress can be fatal (as we saw with the example of Jinxuan).

So, this year's cold delayed the harvests and added a challenge for the farmers: the optimal harvesting period became shorter. Once it became warm, it was very warm. So, lots of plantations had to be processed almost at the same time.

Harvest in San Hsia (BiLuoChun)

This is a real challenge with a dwindling work force in the agricultural sector. How is it even possible? 20 years ago, I would see lots of old ladies slowly harvest tea in all the tea regions of Taiwan. They were used to this work from their youth on and continued to harvest until their 70s or 80s! But this low productivity generation is now retiring. They are replaced by young foreign labor from Vietnam or Thailand, both male and female, or by mechanical harvesting methods. Both the young labor and the machines work faster and can therefore pick the leaves from all the plantations in a shorter time.

The production side of tea has also adapted to a shrinking labor force. First, the preference for lighter oxidation has reduced the need for shaking and bruising the leaves. Fans have helped with the withering of tea. And the invention of a pressing machine (in cube shape) has also cut the manpower needed for rolling the leaves. A farmer has even added a solar and rain sensor in his courtyard during withering. If the sun is too strong, a sun blocking fabric deploys of the courtyard where the leaves are withering. And should the sensor feel it's raining, another plastic fabric deploys to prevent the rain from falling on the leaves.

These human and technological improvements were all first met disapprovingly by the purists and conservative forces in the industry. Indeed, if you look at a dry tea leaf today and compare it to one from 20 years ago, you may be able to see the evolution. But it was slow enough that most didn't see it or got used to it. And it had the benefit of bringing stable tea prices in a world where lots of agriculture products have seen their prices increase dramatically in the last 5 years. (If you wonder why your Taiwan teas purchased in Paris or NYC have increased, it's due to local rents and labor costs! You can save by purchasing directly from my boutique!)

My selection has also evolved a lot in these last 20 years. It's a mix of stability and change. With some farmers, regular visits have led to friendship as I could see the young generation slowly take over. The advantage is that they know my taste and see me as a long term partner. This means that I get some advantages. My BiLuoChun farmer, for instance, will let me know first when his first batch of the year is made. This helps me to select one of the best Taiwanese green tea, because freshness is the #1 factor for green tea quality. It took me 15 years until I got this favor from him! My farmer in Wenshan let's me try among a vast amount of Baozhongs until I find what I like! He's around 60 and his father was already a famous tea master. The variety of Baozhong is amazing. It may have lost some appeal since high mountain Oolongs have appeared, but if you want to explore the variations of cultivars, then every year I try to propose something new in this regard. 

Sticking with reliable and old tea partners has benefits, but life would be boring if one didn't try new sources and explored new farmers. Sometimes it leads to nothing, because the quality is inferior or just the same as  what I already have. But sometimes, often by chance, I meet a friendly guy working in his field or worshipping at a local Daoist temple during rain and end up tasting his excellent tea. That's how I meet the producer of my charcoal roasted Dong Ding Oolongs. 

Qilin pond in the Dong Ding region

This year also became special because I decided to make drone videos of all the tea plantations I visited! Taiwan farmers are improving productivity with technology. As a tea blogger, I also have to upgrade my services if I want to retain my readers' attention! The quality of the 4K videos is worth every penny, in my opinion. I love the spinning rocket shots when the drone flies over my head. Drinking good tea feels very much like flying over the tea plantation...