For me, tea is a universe of endless possibilities. It is able to communicate its tastes to us in its fascinating diversity and thus become part of our lives. Finding out its roots, getting to know its habitat, reading its message, that is the task I set myself for life here in Taiwan.
My teahouse after the earthquake
In 1999, the earth shook in Taiwan. The strongest in ages. All the roads were destroyed and I was unable to visit my remote tea gardens for many weeks. It was only after far too long and with great detours, that I was finally able to see my tea trees again. My heart was pounding - what would they look like? Had they suffered, perhaps even missed me? But when I arrived, I was amazed – they looked much better than when I was constantly fertilizing and spraying them to protect them from pests, as everyone else had done. How could that be? Why was that? Why did my plants feel better when I left them alone?
I began to doubt and made a momentous decision: in the future, I would leave them to themselves much more, avoid pesticides and mineral fertilizers, so as to force them as little as possible. So, after a long journey, I finally became an organically certified tea producer.
The road to the tea gardens
Downtown of Puli
Without the cosmos there would be no life - and no tea either. The wide sky above my tea gardens provides everything my plants need: clean air, rain, haze and sun. And it makes me happy when I find the expression of its influence in the taste of my teas.
It is the soil that nourishes the plants and shapes the scent and aroma of my teas. When I taste closely, sometimes only after the sixth or seventh infusion, the soil, the stones and the earth begin to speak to me. And then I start to listen carefully.
The tea tree is the medium between heaven and earth. And it is its growth that gives us taste and brings to light the secrets of what is hidden in the deep underground. It is present in our nose and on our tongue. It floods our bodies with life.
Camellia Sinensis—the tea plant. In my tea gardens, this plant yields remarkably different teas depending on its location, revealing its true character only through the secrets unlocked during processing in my factory.
I am deeply grateful that this allows me to craft six distinct Oolongs: Green Oolong, GABA Oolong, Charcoal-Roasted Oolong, Red Oolong, Black Oolong, and even White Oolong. It took years for the tea plants to show me the path to creating this variety, guiding me through the delicate balance of withering, rolling, oxidation, and roasting. Within these few steps, an entire hidden world is revealed.
A story about … A father who started harvesting tea and tending wild tea trees in his own garden. And his daughter, who continued this work and fell in love with the country where her father worked and looked after their tea gardens to find answers. And finally, a story about three sisters who work together, to express so much of the hidden secrets they try to find with every new harvest..
Love is a strong word for a fragile connection. Sometimes, the smallest impulses are enough and the world starts to falter. Only then will something emerge, that enables us to create new connections that are sometimes much stronger than before. This is my relationship to all the tea gardens, that I am allowed to tend and their thousands of plants that grow there like friends and who give me their leaves that I can share with others.
Camellia KTEA Taiwan Organic Tea Co
Katie Yen
Organic Tea from Taiwan
No.38. Shuren Rd., Puli Township, Nantou County, Taiwan
China
No.500., Xiang Yang Nan Rd., Xu Hui District, Shanghai, China
Mangyu Organic Tea Gardens, Nannuo Mountain, Xishuangbanna
eMail
service@tea-party.com.tw
Telephon
+886 905 131 329
