High Mountain Tea Plantations destroyed by government...

High mountain tea on the flank of Alishan.

UPDATE: Eco-Cha's response to this piece. And Taiwan Law Blog's.

Clarissa Wei (@dearclarissa) is emerging as a strong voice on environmental and social issues in Taiwan. Her latest piece discusses how the government is destroying high mountain oolong tea farms above 2500 meters in an environmentally-oriented move...

High mountain agriculture can be quite destructive; it erodes the landscape and causes harmful pesticides and fertilizers to contaminate water sources and the land. The additives also strip the soil of moisture, rendering it completely useless in a matter of decades. It’s a toxic industry; for every one pound of tea, roughly $9 USD is spent on pesticides and fertilizers. To discourage high mountain farming, in 2014, Taiwan tea researchers engineered a low-altitude tea—known as Taiwan Tea Number 22—that replicates high mountain tea aromas.

In response to the environmental lobbyists and influenced by voter interests, the government set off to reforest high-elevation tea farms and restore them to their pre-agricultural state. Most farmland was seized and reclaimed.

“It’s a very black-and-white matter to the government,” Limei says. “They see high mountain tea trees and they want to cut it down. What about high mountain cabbage farms and hotels? Those are more destructive than tea. We didn’t even use pesticides.”

The demand for high mountain tea of course leads to the perennial problem of imports repackaged as local teas:

I think about the slew of tea shops in Taipei City alone. High mountain oolong tea is on every tea menu in town. Annual domestic production of tea in Taiwan adds up to 15,000 tons, while demand is about 45,000 tons. The math doesn’t add up.

“A lot of it is imported now from Vietnam, India, and Thailand, and then branded as Taiwan tea,” Tsay says. He says that in a load of commercially marketed Taiwanese oolong tea leaves, only 70 percent of that is real Taiwan oolong. The rest is imported and then mixed in with the batch.

Yes, that's right. Illegal planting of betel nut and even more urgently, bamboo, all over Taiwan's mountains, but what's really concerning is... tea. Although I have to admit I experienced a strong moment of skepticism at the "we don't even use pesticides" remark.

There's a lot going on here. The last few years has seen much government activity in restructuring and renewing mountain lands. I was delighted to find, a couple of years ago, that the government had gone in and demolished the scrum of illegal restaurants and hostels at Tayuling below Wuling. It has taken many years to get this far -- in the early 2000s, for example, when the government handed out subsidies for reforestation, farmers would obtain a plot of land, whack down all its trees, and replant trees to collect subsidies. Strangely, the nation cut its production of grains and let grain producing land lie fallow since it had agreed to import grain from the US... while ignoring slopeland development. Finally, hovering in the background of clarifying who owns what is the increasing assertiveness of aborigines towards lands they once owned and the bitter struggle between the Han government and the aborigines over land (examples: 2001, 2015).

MORE ON THE CLOSURE OF THINKING TAIWAN: The pro-KMT China Times says that Tsai Ing-wen's foundation couldn't decide how Thinking Taiwan should handle criticism of the Tsai Administration. As a very sharp observer of Taiwan sharply observed: they had all that time to think about it, and didn't come up with a policy?
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Daily Links:

• Interview with Shawna Yang Ryan, writer of Green Island
• Eurasia Review:India-Taiwan Relationship: Need To Emerge From The Chinese Shadow – Analysis. I've been saying this in print since the late 1990s, and it is really wonderful to see it finally take place.
• Prague is expelling CCP goons who attacked pro-democracy and pro-Tibet protesters in Czech during Xi's visit.
• Pig farmers protest in front of AIT. This lead by the TSU. Welcome to being the party in power, DPP....
• Because there is just not enough stupid in the world: hilarity ensued this week when a group of businessmen suffering from low-altitude oxygen deprivation erected a statue of Chinese premier Wen Jia-bao as a "Taiwan hero"... the statue was replaced overnight by a tree. 

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The more things change....

A friend of mine put this image of a tin of Formosa Oolong from John Andrews of Boston, probably from the 1880s, on Facebook (more info). It "commemorates" the Boston Tea Party. As I was searching for information on this brand, I stumbled across this droll Consular Report on the Amoy Tea Trade:

THE TEA TRADE OF AMOY.

I can report much more activity in the tea market at this port than prevailed in the trade one year ago. Prices in New York are much more satisfactory.

Up to the 24th ultimo 1,314,286 pounds more of Formosa oolongs had been exported from Amoy to the United States than at the same date last year, and 162,294 pounds less of Amoy oolongs. Of new teas of the present season 8,120,821 pounds have been exported to the United States to date of September 24.

It is estimated that the season's crop of Amoy oolongs will be 40,000 half-chests less than that of last year, and it is ciurently anticipated that the present year's supply of Formosa oolongs will be from 15,000 to 20,000 half-chests short of the previous year's crop.

The quality of the Formosa crop is claimed to be a full average, while the grade of Amoy oolongs this year is said to be rather more vile than that of previous years, when it was quite bad enough.

Nothing can be said in commendation of Amoy oolong at any time. But little of it is exported elsewhere than to the United States, where, I surmise, it is largely mixed with teas of better quality, thereby toning the one down and the other up in quality, and so a tea that is too miserably bad to venture into the markets of the world is pushed into the United States and imposed upon consumers there in order to satisfy the greed of exporters here and of importers in the United States.

The statute against the importatioin of bad and adulterated teas into the United States is quite sufficient, and if carefully enforced at the ports of entry at home would justify the exclusion of a very considerable percentage of the Amoy oolongs which are annually imported into the United States and imposed upon American consumers. — Amoy, October 7

WM. S. CROWELL
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Alishan Take Three

James checks his pics. Not a great day for pics; by the time we got up high, the rain and fog was rolling in. Moral of the story: you can never start too early in the mountains. Yet it was still a surpassingly lovely ride.

Another weekend, another ride. This time I avoided the growing horror of President Ma Ying-jeou's mind-numblingly stupid assault on Wang Jin-pyng by hiding in the mountains for a lovely two day ride over two of my favorite roads, the 169 up Alishan, and the 159A into Chiayi city, which is really the prettiest road on the island. Click on READ MORE to read more....

Too bad you missed it: Alishan

This weekend I repeated a ride that Drew and I had done back in Dec of 2010, Taichung to Caoling on Day 1, then Caoling up Alishan to Fenchihu and then down to Chaiyi city on the glorious 159甲 on Day 2. The ride up Alishan and down the 159甲is one of the loveliest on the island and I had long wanted to repeat it. But there was a problem: on that ride, I was pretty wiped out after the climbing on Day 1 and had to walk a long stretch of the brutal 169 on Day 2. This time I was determined not to fail. I had the 11-32 cassette on my bike (I have a SRAM Apex groupset) swapped for an 11-36. With a 50-34 compact dual up front, this gave me a 34/36 for a climbing gear. Last weekend I tested it: could I spin more and go up hills more easily? It seemed so. Bring on Alishan!

A gazillion pics in this post. Click on READ MORE below to see them. Drew's wonderful posts on the ride may be accessed here.

Riding the Stimulant District

Saturday it was time for my monthly Century (100 miles) ride. Drew suggested we ride down 3 in central Taiwan and ride 149 just to see what was there. The result was a rewarding ride through the tea, coffee, and betel nut district of south-central Taiwan.

We met up in southern Taichung, where the size and number of the political advertisements are growing geometrically as the election approaches. It looked like it might rain, but the rain never really materialized, and in the afternoon we even got some sun.

We hit 149 in a couple of hours.

Going south down a long river gorge, 149 is bordered on its west side by the sheer gravel and rock faces common in central Taiwan.

Such as this one, for example.

Great views throughout the trip.

Shortly after we entered 149 we ran across this old temple. It had been built in the Qing Dynasty, Drew told me later. He found some interesting tombs nearby from plains aboriginal soldiers who had died in WWII. More on his blog later, I hope.

Along the roadside stood tombs of plains aborigines. It was an interesting mix of religions.

We soon entered an area of low-altitude tea farms.

Like this one.

Tea plants.

The road began climbing, yielding enjoyable views over the river vally.

Tea farms lined the roadside.

In the distance, tea pickers at work.

The Man in Black explores a side road.

Plenty of little villages lined the road.

Drying tea leaves.

Taking a photo op break.

We stopped by some tea pickers close to the road.

Watching the foreigner with the camera.

"What if this thing goes off?" a friend captioned this photo.

Tea pickers at work.

A coffee plant.

Another photo op break.

The mountains were coated with haze and fog. Can't wait to ride this when it is clear.

A bend in the forest.

Tea farms tumbling down the terraces to the river.

Near the turn for 158 there is a suspension bridge just off the road.

From the suspension bridge.

Gone fishing.

We climbed on 158A through forest for a couple of kilometers, not a car in sight......

Before winding up in the tea farms again.

Near the top.

We rolled down 149A back to Douliuo, a wonderful ride which I took no pictures of because I was having too much fun, then it was lunch and back on 3 to Taichung.

Along the way Drew took me on a nifty little diversion along 141 and 152 to Mingjian where we picked up 3 again.

It is really a pretty little ride, well worth the couple of extra kilometers.

The Formosan macaque research center near Mingjian.

Alas, it was back to dull, betel-nut-girl-and-auto-repair Rte 3 in Mingjian. Both Drew and I consider missionary proselytization a great evil, and in Mingjian we ran into a couple of Mormon missionaries spreading their centralized authority worship and securing new income streams for their organization. The encounter with that peculiarly Mormon combination of smug colonialism and arrant ignorance left an ugly taste in our mouths, but soon afterward we fell in with a group of Taiwanese guys on mountain bikes. The switch from the loony authority-worshipers to a bunch of sane, rational, good-humored intelligent Taiwan folks out for a Saturday ride was a life-affirming one, and we-renergized for the long ride home with a good-natured race down 3.

A wonderful ride! I'm a slow rider, but despite the climbs I kept up a good speed for me, averaging 20.2 kms/hr over the entire 166 kms. The entire area from 149 on south through Meishan and down to Alishan is surpassingly lovely and is highly recommended. Looking forward to spending more time there this fall, and hope to see you on the road soon!

ADDED: Drew's post on our ride.

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Daily Links

• The East Asian Arms race is aimed at China
• The hazards of ghost money
• Being a Taiwan beer girl
• Taiwanese runners surprise Kenyans, win Taroko Gorge Marathon
  

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Chiayi Riding

Had an inspiring ride on Saturday ahead of the monsoon rains down in Chiayi with my friends Drew and Darrn. I think this is the route we took. Our navigation sucked; the red markers represent places where we missed turns, so I am not sure exactly what the route was. Here Drew and Darren converse as we take a break.Click on READ MORE to see more...

Riding in Southern Nantou County

Had another great ride on Saturday, this time in Nantou through the tea district around Lugu, just below Hsitou, with my friend Drew and Todd A of The Daily Bubble Tea. For a map of the route, go here. Click on read more to see more...

Taiwan's Napa Valley of Tea

A dear friend flipped me this link to an excellent and appreciative article on Taiwan's tea drinking and growing culture:

That growth is due in part to the nearly missionary zeal of merchants like Lee. During the early 1980s, he would travel to different Bay Area supermarkets, set up a table with two chairs and brew tea for shoppers. He would patiently explain to Westerners unaccustomed to Asian tea that their brew, full of complex flavors, does not need milk and sugar.

"We emphasize the aroma, the taste," said Chen Hsuan, deputy director of Taiwan's Tea Research and Extension Station in Yangmei, while sipping high-mountain oolong, the signature Taiwan tea.

The government facility, which employs some 60 researchers, contains tasting rooms, labs and small patches of land lined with neat rows of knee-high tea plants. In addition to providing the latest research on tea cultivation, government scientists are continually developing new strains of the crop.

More than 16,000 Taiwan family farms grow tea, and the average plot size is no more than 21/2 acres. Tea farms in other countries typically are at least 10 times larger, Chen said.

Taiwanese were not always so high-minded about commercial tea production, which dates back hundreds of years to the early Qing Dynasty's rule over the island. During the 1970s and '80s, Taiwan transformed itself from an agricultural society to an industrial one.

Despite the shift to a high-tech economy, the government began promoting competitions to boost interest in the local produce and spur farmers to create quality tea. The tea industry, which struggled to compete with cheap teas from countries like Vietnam and Indonesia, invested in costly cultivation processes to grow crops that catered to the newly affluent citizens. Today, the more expensive oolong and paochong teas are picked and processed by hand.

The tea culture is indeed highly developed, and not well appreciated among foreigners, even those who have lived here for a long time. There are some excellent tea blogs out there, including Stephane's masterful Tea Masters.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!