Taiwan Regional Teas: Baozhong

In early October, Stephanie Wilson and I did a tea talk on Taiwanese Oolongs at the NW Tea Festival. We covered five Oolongs: Baozhong; Oriental Beauty; Dong Ding; Tieguanyin, and Alishan High Mountain Oolong.

Stephanie is a tea lover. She is very active in the tea community in Portland and writes a tea blog: Steph's Cup of Tea. She has also traveled to many tea regions. Last year, she joined my Taiwan Tea Tour. She helped me a lot to sort through many pictures she took in Taiwan, and during our tea talk, she talked about her thoughts on each tea region of Taiwan and how she feels about each tea, while I covered the history side of each tea. We worked together as a great team!

Stephanie's take on Pinglin and Farmer Chen:

"The light oxidation brings out the tea's sweetness and floral notes. I find it to be a soft tea. The color of the liquor is beautiful and translucent green/yellow. The best word I can think of to describe this tea is "innocence." That description works for this farmer, too. Farmer Chen was a joy to be with!
I have learned that the tea farmers and tea makers in Taiwan are very deeply skilled and devoted. For example, Farmer Chen has been making tea for 42 years. His specialty is open leaf style, that's how Baozhong is traditionally made. He has limited time to process in other ways, so when he is interested in making a rolled Oolong, he sends the tea off to someone who specializes in that style."

And here is some history background for Baozhong 包種:

"Wenshan 文山 Baozhong vs. Pinglin 坪林 Baozhong? Wenshan is a district. Wenshan includes Xindian 新店, Shiding 石碇, Pinglin 坪林, Shenkeng 深坑, and Xizhi 汐止. Currently, Pinglin is the most well-known production area for Baozhong.

Baozhong was believed to be invented by Wang Yichen 王義臣. He used the Wuyi Cliff tea method to make tea, wrapping tea leaves in rectangular-shaped paper, which he stamped the tea and company's name on. Baozhong tea means "the wrapped kind of tea".

Baozhong tea was a scented tea for quite a long time. When Taiwan tea exports were impacted by the bad economy, some tea merchants learned of scented tea from Fujian and sent materials to Fujian to be scented. Merchants later learned to scent Baozhong in Taiwan. In early 1900s, scented Baozhong was a huge export tea.

A historical record states that in 1885, Wang Shuijin 王水錦 and Wei Jingshi 魏靜時 arrived in Nangang 南港 and found the soil and weather condition to be suitable for tea growing. They started to establish tea growing, and it's believed that Nangang is the birth place of Baozhong in Taiwan.

Qingxin 青心 Oolong is considered to be the best varietal for Baozhong tea. However, one can find many different varietals that are grown in the Pinglin region."

Have fun reading! In the next post, I will write about our talk on Oriental Beauty Oolong.

*photos provided by Stephanie Wilson.