Bi Luo Chun (碧螺春)

Many are surprised to learn that Taiwan, long known for oolongs and bubble tea, has a local tradition of green tea originating just south of Taipei. Complex, with grassy, buttery, and haylike notes, this tea can have several notes that feel unique to people used to Longjing, Sencha, or other more popular variations of green tea (Once, a friend described a slight canned tuna note in his Bi Luo Chun).

Bi Luo Chun, whose name translates to "Green Snail Spring," has an outsized origin myth about a girl watering a tree with her tears, prompting it to sprout tea leaves the following Spring. Outside the realm of myth, Emperor Qianlong, who ruled during the peak of the Qing Dynasty, is said to have given this name to the leaves after he disliked the previous moniker: Xia Sha Ren Xiang (吓煞人香), or Scared To Death Person's Fragrance.

Merchants sell two teas named Bi Luo Chun, one from Taiwan and the other from the Mainland. They are very different in shape and flavor— no surprise since they use entirely different cultivars.

Taiwan Bi Luo Chun traditionally comes from the San Xia (三峡) region, a forested and cool microclimate outside of Taipei. The leaves are a twisted and fluffy strip shape, contrasting with the rolled snail shapes of the Mainland version. As a general guideline, you can expect smaller leaves used in Mainland Bi Luo Chun than you find on the island, though this will vary from farm to farm.

I've been in dialogue with local history buffs about Taiwan Bi Luo Chun, who say the Taiwanese version was crafted initially as an imitation of (or perhaps a tribute to) the Mainland version. Using the same pan-frying technique on fresh green tea leaves, they approached the rich and complex profile of their beloved (and now unavailable) teas. Stephane Erler reports that this process began at the request of Chiang Kai-Shek's generals, who longed for their favorite teas grown in Hangzhou. Taiwan would not have had the local varietals (usually Qunti Zong 群体种) endemic to the Mainland, so they would have combined what was available and optimized for their microclimate with those same pan-frying techniques used for old favorites.

Bao Zhong (包种)

Baozhong arrives in twisted shapes, which we see most frequently in three forms: Fresh, Roasted, and Aged.

Fresh Baozhong tastes floral and grassy, and the very best feature lovely cream notes that linger on the palate after the sip and carry through multiple infusions. These qualities are at their apex when plucking and processing, with slight transformations and diminishment occurring over time.

Roasted Baozhong maintains some floral aromatics but is augmented by the savory and full experience brought by additional time in the finishing ovens. Roasted Baozhong can vary in quality considerably — often, farmers will delegate their lower-quality leaves to the fire, arguably an improvement upon cheap green Baozhong. Motivated seekers can undoubtedly find high-quality Roasted Bazhong; do not let the production method be a replacement for the judgment of your senses.

Aged Baozhong tends to be roasted, a relic of the preferred past production method and a protective measure often taken while aging tea. Roasting cooks away excess moisture and preserves the quality of leaves as they age. People familiar with great aged White Tea or Sheng Puer will be familiar with the slow transformations that occur, as leaves experience a simultaneous mellowing and clarification of several robust notes.

Producers make Baozhong in multiple places throughout Taiwan. I have enjoyed varieties grown in Wenshan, Pinglin, and Shiding, though you can find other areas that produce their own versions. If you are visiting Taipei and want to explore Baozhong production, I recommend visiting Pinglin, which features multiple small factories alongside a winding blue river, snaking between small hills covered in vivid green tea fields. It is also home to one of the largest tea museums in Taiwan, featuring exhibitions on science, culture, and reimaginings of the drink through the lens of contemporary art.

Gao Shan (高山)

When most people think of Taiwanese tea, they think of a smattering of ball-shaped Gao Shan leaves floating in their teapot. It would be difficult to overstate how much high-elevation teas have captured the global imagination; those who have just begun their explorations take its floral freshness as representative of all Taiwanese tea.

Gaoshan, literally "High Mountain," occupies an idiosyncratic place on this list. Gao Shan refers more to terroir than the production process or plant cultivar; it can be challenging to pinpoint commonalities that unify every instance of this tea you will encounter. It's primarily (but not exclusively) used to designate Oolongs. However, you occasionally find a black swan, such as Gao Shan, fully oxidized into hong cha (black tea).

High altitudes produce creamy, floral teas with a sweet aftertaste. Producers attribute these notes to the oxygen-poor environment, sunlight, and cloud coverage. The farms are primarily in Central Taiwan, particularly in the Alishan growing region, Li Shan, and Da Yu Ling.

Gaoshan should be grown, at a minimum, at an elevation above 1000 meters. While I have met farmers who insist that nothing grown below 1500 meters can be considered Gaoshan, I prefer to report the actual usage of these terms by farmers, merchants, and industry commentators rather than impose a prescriptive definition from outside.

Dong Ding (洞顶)

Dong Ding is the first Taiwanese oolong I fell in love with. The flavor — roasted, sweet, and aromatic, has an underlying fatty or oily roundness that shocks those who are expecting a standard cup of floral oolong.

In the 1970s, the TRES set out to create a kind of tea that could compete with the Mainlands Yancha, cultivated on the rocky cliffs of Wuyi Shan. They selected Dong Ding as their candidate, a tea produced since the 1800s, and have been refining the formula ever since.

Dong Ding, like Yancha, is traditionally roasted over charcoal. This is the ideal, anyway, as cheap Dong Ding is readily available that has been cooked in an electric oven. I encourage everyone to seek out the charcoal-roasted version and experience it wherever possible, especially side-by-side with its electric oven relative.

The name, which translates to "Frozen Peaks," is deceptive to a reader unfamiliar with the terrain. While it may sound like a Gao Shan oolong, grown amidst rocky heights, it is actually grown in Lugu Township, an area not exactly renowned for its towering elevation. Nowadays, Dong Ding refers more to the heavy roasting style and ball shape than any one specific area of production. 

Tie Guan Yin (鐵觀音)

Readily available in the United States under the name Iron Goddess of Mercy, this should immediately ring the bell of recognition for people just starting to explore the world of oolongs.

Less commonly known is that there are actually two Tie Guan Yin's, one from Anxi County, in the Mainland, and the other from Taiwan. (Confusingly, some Taiwan TGY comes from a small village outside Taipei, also named Anxi, but we will set that aside for the moment).

Taiwanese producers cultivated Tie Guan Yin in the 1900s in the Muzha area. It has a reputation for being much more heavily roasted than its mainland counterpart, offering a dark liquor and full flavor. While both may feature the same ball shape, one would only sometimes mistake their flavor for each other. I am finding that as consumer tastes move towards less-oxidized, "fresher" teas, the market moves with them.

In recent travels to Taipei, I found minimally roasted Tie Guan Yin readily available on store shelves. Bubble tea shops, to take a visual survey while walking the streets of Taipei, often use this flavor profile when they offer it as a base for their sweetened drinks.

Dong Fang Mei Ren (東方美人)

Invented during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, Dong Fang Mei Ren is one of the more colorful teas produced today. Supposedly, its reputation made it to the Queen of England, who saw the leaves spinning in a glass teacup and named it "Oriental Beauty."

I take these origin stories with a grain of salt, holding out this example as an aristocratic foil to the other name it was once known as — Peng Feng Cha (椪风茶), or Braggart's Tea. This name connects to its production method, in which Jassids, a little green insect that eats tea leaves, have historically been a problem for tea farmers. The easiest solution is to spray with pesticides, an option that makes most consumers bristle.

The story goes that an intrepid farmer once took his field of bug-bitten leaves, processed them, and brought them to a local market, where he could command higher-than-normal prices in exchange for the sweet, aromatic leaves. A new industry was born.

Dong Fang Mei Ren (or Dong Mei, as the locals call it) is generally seen with tiny buds and leaves. The bug bites produce a scent of honey and overripe tree fruit -- with the general rule of thumb being that a larger number of bites leads to a greater concentration of flavor.

Hong Yu (紅玉)

Hong Yu is another tea that the TRES designed. It combines Assamica, a varietal likely already familiar from Indian teas and packages of breakfast blends, and Shan Cha (山茶), or wild-growing mountain tea. Harmony is the result, with a robust taste supplemented by sparkling aromatics. 

Shan Cha, generally of the Camellia sinensis var. Formosensis type, grows throughout Taiwan, but especially around Yuchi township and the Sun Moon Lake region. This area is the heart of Hong Yu production and the site of multiple types of Hong Cha production, including simple Assamica, straight Shan Cha, and Hong Yun.

Some online sources, including Wikipedia, suggest that Hong Yu is a bug-bitten tea, like its distant neighbors, Dong Fang Mei Ren and Gui Fei. That was news to us. I reached out to a producer in Sun Moon Lake and a TRES contact, hoping to get to the bottom of this mystery. Both sources confirmed that Hong Yu does not include bug bites in its standard production process. I had all but closed the case on this minor mystery when I sat down for a cup of Hong Yu at a tea shop in Taipei City. The proprietor showed me some leaves that he was excited about — bug-bitten Hong Yu.

It seems that some, a tiny minority, of Hong Yu is bug-bitten, but you can presume that the teaseller will highlight that fact if you doubt your particular cup. It shows that there are no firm and fast rules, with people always experimenting and innovating, and that you will find exceptions as quickly as you can make categorical statements.

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