Alishan Tea Mountain in Taiwan

Tea Adventures in Asia

Jan 17

Written By Charlene Tranquil Tuesdays

Tea plants growing in the misty high mountains of Alishan

Views were stunning with Alishan's famous "cloud ocean"

Enjoyed tea appreciation was celebrated on local public bus

On a hike through tea fields

Coffee plants also grow well here in the high altitude

Eating a tea cuisine dinner

Whole tea leaves and bud tempura

Four starters using tea leaves in different ways

Egg cooked with tea leaves

Shizuo Tea Street

Fun larger than life teapot at breakfast stall

Magical mist covering tea plants growing on mountainside

Tea cloud mist

Up close on tea plants and morning dew

Tea plants resting in the winter

You can see the beginning of new shoots

The sun came out in Alishan

Our host, a second generation tea maker

Where we are exactly on the map of Taiwan

You can see where the netting to cover withering tea is rolled up

Tea plants covered in snow one year when it snowed on Alishan

Tony sharing a ride with 70 lbs of tea

Taking an elusive vintage train at the peak of Alishan

A beautiful vintage forestry railway train made of hinoki wood

Alishan high mountain tea growing

Thoroughly enjoying our time on Alishan soaking up the tea life

Spent the New Year ensconced among rows and rows of tea plants growing up in the high-altitudes of Alishan mountain in Taiwan where one of Taiwan’s most famous oolong teas are grown and made.

I have visited Taiwan twice before, one time visiting some other well-known Taiwan tea mountains in Nantou County where teas like Dong Ding Oolong are grown and made, but this was my first time to legendary Alishan.

Teas are grown at a high altitude of over 1300 meters meaning tea from Alishan qualifies for the “高山茶 high mountain tea” moniker which requires tea grown over 1000 meters to use that name.

Alishan is very famous for their teas, but also well known for cypress hinoki tree forests which made it popular with the Japanese who built forestry railways during the Japanese colonial era (1895-1945) to export (or extract) hinoki wood back to Japan.

We had the pleasure of staying with a family of third generation tea growers and makers at their home in Shizuo, one of the main tea trading towns on Alishan, overlooking their tea fields.

Since it was the winter in between harvest seasons, they had the time to host us and teach us about their growing operation, and share local cuisine specialties.

Our host informed us that nowadays most of the tea growing and tea picking labor during harvest season is done with imported Vietnamese migrant labor. He still does the roasting and finishing of teas himself though in the family workshop.

Mostly though we really enjoyed the dreamy cloudy misty atmosphere where Alishan’s delicious oolong teas are grown and made.

To watch some short videos of Alishan, check out Tranquil Tuesdays’s instagram page.