Taiwan Tea Odyssey

Tales of drinking tea in Taiwan

  • Making of a Champion: an inside look at the Muzha Tieguanyin Competition

    If you spend enough time in Taipei tea shops, eventually you’ll come across one of these golden boxes: This is competition-grade tieguanyin from Muzha, perhaps the most famous tea growing region in the greater Taipei area (and especially well-known for the many teahouses in Maokong). Twice a year, the Muzha Farmers Association holds a competition… Continue reading

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  • Laughtear Chinese Teahouse

    One of my favorite parts of living in Taiwan is going to teahouses. It’s a chance to slow down and unwind, and when on your own, for deeper introspection. Which is a rare luxury when you’re usually chasing around a toddler. When you visit a teahouse here, it’s pretty much a given that the place… Continue reading

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  • The perils of online tea shopping

    This tea was supposedly a 1997 Xiaguan tuocha. Which is a bit older than the Xiaguan teas you typically run into. It was fairly cheap and was easy to throw in my online shopping cart one evening. I didn’t give it much thought. The first clue that something was amiss should’ve been the price. A… Continue reading

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  • Tea sampling in Maokong

    Maokong is a small hillside neighborhood in the outskirts of Taipei, part of the broader Muzha region. It’s well known for its tea plantations and the many teahouses you can visit for lunch/dinner. It’s also really fun to get there, because you take a cable car (called the Maokong Gondola) up over the hills with… Continue reading

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  • Six Door Tea

    There are teahouses all around Taiwan. Some big, some small, some good, some pretty mediocre. Some justifiably well known, plenty of others you just have to stumble upon. One of my favorites is Six Door Tea (六扇門) in Pingxi (平溪), which is a charming little river town to the east of Taipei. I’ve been out… Continue reading

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  • Shopping for tea in Pinglin

    Last week, my wife and I drove to Pinglin (坪林), a small rural town half an hour southeast of Taipei City, in hot pursuit of nesting herons that she wanted to film. Knowing that it was also spring harvest time for tea, and that Pinglin is the heart of the baozhong growing region, I was… Continue reading

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  • Land of jade markets

    Flip through any travel guide, and you’ll inevitably see mention of Taipei’s jade market, on Jianguo Road. It’s packed on weekends and is impressive in size, but can leave you feeling numb after you’ve wandered row upon row of cluttered tables, enclosed in an oppressive parking garage lacking all natural light. For the tea obsessive… Continue reading

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