Region · in Taiwan
Taichung
Taichung is a large western city whose tea is all in one corner of it, the mountain district in the county's far northeast reached by the Central Cross-Island Highway. What is up there is the top of the Taiwanese altitude ladder: Lishan, and higher again Da Yu Ling. Almost nothing is ever sold as Taichung tea, because the ridge names carry the price and the county name carries nothing.
What grows here
Unroasted ball-rolled high mountain oolong from Qing Xin, and effectively nothing else. Lishan is the broad name for the ridge, with Fushou Shan the best-known area inside it, while Da Yu Ling sits higher on the same road and is counted separately. Either of those names says more than any claim made at the level of the county.
What to look for
The boundaries run along the top of the range, so the ridge everyone calls Da Yu Ling sits where Taichung, Nantou and Hualien meet and gardens on either side of those lines sell under the same trade name. A county-level origin claim is close to meaningless here in both directions: Taichung on a label does not make a tea high, and a garden outside Taichung is not necessarily outside the real growing area. Ask for the named area or the highway kilometre marker, which is how the trade identifies plots up here.
Harvest terms from Taichung
The harvest words a label from here is likely to carry.
Places in Taichung
Named places inside Taichung. The ones with a page of their own are links.