Jin Xuan Oolong (Taiwan Tea Cultivar No. 12), the most versatile of Thai-Oolongs
In principal, you can process any tea plant species’ leaves to a near-indefinite variety of teas: you can process them as a green tea, a black tea, or an Oolong tea... Still, with time a processing standard has evolved for most or all known tea plant varieties... However, for some tea plant varieties there isn’t just one standard, but several alternative ways to produce different teas of equal desirability have emerged instead... Our Taiwan Jin Xuan Oolong tea cultivar No. 12 is a perfect example for this... I have come to know it alternatively as an Oolong tea, as a black tea, and as a “winter tea”... Taste and aroma of the Jin Xuan Oolong tea... we have the grassy elements, reminiscences of green tea... we have the earthy base notes that are so typical for Oolong teas... we do have some sweetness, too... another description I have often used to describe Jin Xuan Oolong tea: a most “honest” one among those “fine” Oolong teas... READ MORE
Taiwan Oolong Tea Development & Know-how Export to Thailand
Recognizing the potential of the local tea industry, the Taiwanese government in the beginning of the 20th century decided to purposefully promote the development of Oolong tea varieties, and in 1926 established the Tea Research Institute of Taiwan. The institute’s work in the 1970s culminated in the setup and operation of a range of experimental stations, so-called “Taiwan Tea Experiment Stations” (TTES), where a series of Oolong tea cultivars were developed in a targeted manner on the basis of the institute’s scientific research results... Now, what does all that have to to with us and our teas from North Thailand? Simply spoken, Thailand owes the rise of its tea industry and its arduously conquered entry on the world map of tea for a good part to the above described Taiwanese efforts of developing Oolong tea cultivars with defined characteristics and requirement profiles... This way, a number of cultivars one after the other finally made it to North Thailand, where they have been successfully cultivated, and where they meanwhile have developed their own northern Thai profile. Typical representatives of these cultivars in north Thailand are Jin Xuan Oolong No. 12, Ruan Zhi Oolong No. 17 and 4 Seasons Si Ji Chun Oolong tea. READ MORE
Doi Tung 2: The Tea Gardens of Doi Tung – On the Tracks of the Royal Development Project
The actual roots of the tea cultivation in north Thailand are located on the Doi Tung mountain, more precisely in the middle of the 1990's in the local offshoot of the Thai Royal Development Projects... I was looking at an extended weekend, where I would be able to take the time for a journey to the Doi Tung, in order to follow the tracks of tea cultivation in north Thailand to their very beginnings... The Tourist Attractions of Doi Tung... The Royal Villa Doi Tung... Mae Fah Luang Flower Garden... Hall of Inspiration... Doi Tung Hilltribe Bazar... The teas gardens of Doi Tung... there are even virtually "forested" tea gardens, where the tea plants grow in the (half) shade of a treetop cover... They won't allow it to, it is these fresh tips they want to harvest, process and savor in particular. A proper hand picking of only and exclusively such tips yields the teas qualities that nowadays, given the flood of machine-harvested mass teas, are often referred to as "boutique tea"... READ MORE
Tea Production in Doi Mae Salong, North Thailand: the picking and processing of our Oolong Nr.12 Jin Xuan
The following video shows "the becoming" of our Oolong No.12 Jin Xuan, together with the Oolong No.17 Ruan Zhi the major trademark of tea cultivation and production in Northern Thailand. Both hybrids originate from Taiwan's Lishan Highlands, from where they were brought to the mountains of North Thailand for cultivation in 1994. The effort has definitely been worth it, as our little film clearly demonstrates.
Principally, three main categories of tea processing can be differentiated: the processing to
• Green tea (not fermented)
• Oolong tea (part-fermented)
• Black tea (fully fermented)
Two more (sub-) categories can be added to the above-mentioned classification
• White tea (very light fermented)
• Pu Errh tea (post-fermented)
In the following description, we take orientation on the conditions at our producer partners in Doi Mae Salong, North Thailand. READ MORE...
Doi Mae Salong – Center of Northern Thai Tea Cultivation
Venue Doi Mae Salong, Northern Thailand, in the heart of the Golden Triangle: it is 6 a.m., when Mrs. Sumalee lifts the roller shutters of her tea-shop, located at the main street of the town in the Northern Thai mountains that is populated exclusively by ethnic Chinese… Just little more than 20 years ago, the hills of Doi Mae Salong, whose slopes today show a picture of one tea garden besides the other, were still covered with opium fields. The inhabitants of the Chinese mountain enclaves in Northern Thailand, Doi Mae Salong and Doi Wawee, deprived of their main source of income made a virtue of necessity and bethought themselves of another, millennium-old Chinese tradition, the knowledge of the cultivation and processing of tea. READ MORE...
Thai Tea – Tea cultivation in Thailand
In the area today forming the border region Northern Thailand/Burma, tea was already harvested from wild growth at a very early stage...The Kuomintang Army...Doi Mae Salong, a small, picturesque town, situated at an altitude of 1800 m above sea level...part of the legendary Golden Triangle...Royal Thai Tea Project...Tea cultivation at Doi Mae Salong...the opium cultivation in the mountain enclave being completely replaced by one of the cultivation of tea...more than 200 tons of tea annually, and the quality particularly of the locally grown Oolong teas, but also the Green Teas, and more recently Black Teas, for which the plants were originally imported from Taiwan....Doi Mae Salong provides just perfect conditions for tea growing...also produces tea scented with jasmine flowers, the Chinese "immortality herb" Jiaogulan, as well as Ginseng Tea and other scented teas like Rice Tea or Osmanthus Green Tea...Other Tea Cultivation Areas in Northern Thailand, especially the regions Doi Tung and Doi Chang...Tea cultivation in the Shan areas...The Shan call their plants 'Ning Lung'...ideal conditions for a particularly fine tea...Many Shan are from childhood on familiar with the cultivation of tea trees...benefit the Shan refugees via a percentage levy on the realized proceeds from the sale of ShanTea amounting to 20% of total sales..READ MORE...
The History of Tea
Origin of tea culture, cultivation and use of the tea plant...
Most sources date the discovery of tea as a beverage and as medicinal herb to about 2700 - 2800 BC...
... is taken from the tea bible "Cha Jing", written by the Chinese literate Lu Yu (733-804 AD). Accdording to the Cha Jing, tea first became known through the Chinese healer Shennung (2737 Chr BC)...
Lu Yu in his writings advocated this traditional method of tea preparation and transcended the consumption of the tea beverage to a spiritual act...
Not only the commercial marketing, but also the further development of different tea processing methods (e.g. Green Tea, Oolong Tea, Black Tea, scented or flavored teas), up to a certain point can be mainly attributed to the Chinese...
Tea was first brought to Europe from China by a portugaise priest, Gasper da Cruz... ...tea then held its great march of triumph through all of Europe in the course of the 17. century...
eversince, tea, as well as the culture and rites surrounding the comsumption of tea, have claimed a well-established position in European life...
READ MORE...