Last week, I had the opportunity to visit a tea plantation near Sun Moon Lake, called Hogosum. During this visit, I was able to make my own black tea. So that is why I decided to take an interest in tea growing in Taiwan.
In Formosa Island, tea is a very popular drink. In addition, Taiwanese black tea is very famous in the world, thanks to Oolong Tea. Furthermore, tea made in Sun Moon Lake’s area is really well known.
The art of tea is widespread on the island of Formosa. It is also very "regulated" by tradition.
First, the tea leaves are put in an infusoria integrated in a small teapot.
The tea is then infused for the first time for 1 minute (the time is very precise and important if you want to have the perfect tea).
The first tea is not drunk but discarded because it is considered as a bad tea. It is only the third infusion that it is considered as a good one.
Then, for other times, the infusion lasts only 30 seconds.
After that, the tea is poured into a teapot larger than that used for brewing.
And finally, tea can be delicately poured into small cups and be savoured by our taste buds.
The tasting technique is similar to that of wine. It is therefore necessary to "lamper" the tea, that is to say take a little tea in his mouth and suck the air with in order to bring out the best flavors.
Now that you're up to date on the tasting, let's get interested in making tea.
There are several stages, all equally important.
First, they have to pick the leaves from the tea trees. They call that the "PLUCKING". The leaves are still fresh and not handled.
After that, they are spread out and left during 18 to 20 hoursto wilght slightly to evaporate moisture. The leaf is then also easier to roll. This step is called "WITHERING". The leaf then becomes darker and slightly withered.
Then, the most physicall stage comes : the "ROLLING". When I made my own tea, this was the stage by which I had to start. For my few grams of tea leaves, I had to drive for 10 or 20 minutes (I can't remember exactly, but I just know that it was really long). It was really hard because the goal of this step is to always roll the leaves in the same direction. Clockwise or counter-clockwise, it doesn't matter, you just have to remember it. It's up to you to choose. In addition, the pressure exerted must be neither to strong nor too weak, so as not to destroy the taste and the visual of the tea. After that, the leaves don't look like leaves anymore, they are totally destroyed. My hands smelled of fresh cut grass, it was very nice. However, I would have imagine that after crushing these tea leaves with my hands, they would smell the tea and not the grass. But that wasn't the case so I was really surprised.
Then comes a very important step if you want to make some black tea, called the "FERMENTATION". However, if you want to make green tea, this step will be deleted. I didn't think at all that the difference between green tea and black tea was fermentation. I thought that the difference was in the leaves chosen. In reality, the leaves are exactly the same and only this step changes. During fermentation, the color of the tea changes.
Finally, the last step, also very important is "DRYING". By using high temperature, it destroys enzymes and completely stops fermentation (if it's about black tea). Today, thanks to the machines helping to dry the leaves, a tea can be done in 2 days.
The longest part of the fabrication is the second one, because this time can't be reduces by any machines, so producers just have to wait in any case. In addition, Taiwanese production remains closely to the tradition, so there are very few machines and the plantations are quite small.
As I said before, black tea doesn't have only one color or one flavor.
Actually, Taiwan isn't the only country where black tea is cultivated. There are also China, India, Indoesia, Ceylon, Russia, Europe...
But Taiwanese black tea is not a strong one. All depends on the area, the weather, the ground, the way to work it... There are so many factors that changes the taste and also the appearance of black tea.
To finish, here is a small diagram to help you to accompany your black tea with some tea snacks.
TREAT YOURSELF !!