A Displaced Tea Tradition in Mae Salong, Thailand

I recently came back from a trip to Maesalong, Thailand. Maesalong is on the northern border of Thailand near Burma and is a very special tea growing region. I can’t wait to share this incredible learning experience and exploration with you!

Tea, Thailand and…Taiwan?

Near the original oldest tea trees growing in Yunnan, China and Assam, India some Assam trees also grow in northern Thailand where local communities have been drinking the dried leaves for centuries.

not only are Thailand and Taiwan pretty far from each other, a flight from Mae Salong to Taiwan is 10 hours!

Cultivating and crafting Taiwanese style oolongs in this remote region of northern Thailand, however, is a relatively recent and seemingly unlikely development considering that Thailand and Taiwan are separated geographically by over 1400 miles (2259 km), a few countries, and an ocean.

Tasting and learning more about the Taiwanese style oolong teas from Mae Salong, Thailand unfolds one of the most intriguing and fascinating little corners of tea history.

A Little History Rewind to 1948

Mao Zedong on the left, Chiang Kai-Shek on the right (which you could argue aligns with their political views)

To understand the special teas of Mae Salong, it is important to first rewind to 1948 when two factions were fighting over control over China: the Kuomintang Party (KMT) led by Chiang Kai-Shek and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) led by Mao Zedong.

As you can see from the map above: Yunnan, China is very close to Mae Salong, Thailand. Considering Xishuangbanna, the town closest to the Thai border and Mae Salong are famous for their Pu’er Teas, it is particularly notable that Mae Salong’s thriving and growing tea industry isn’t one of Yunnan style pu’er tea, but rather Taiwanese style oolong tea.

When the KMT and CCP were fighting all over China for ruling power, there was a detachment of local KMT soldiers based in Yunnan. These soldiers and their families spoke the local Yunnanese dialect but also spoke Mandarin Chinese as spoken by the KMT party.

In 1949, when the Chinese Communist Party came to power, the main leadership of the KMT fled to Taiwan and this KMT detachment retreated into Burma (as you can see in the map also very close by).

Burma Gets The UN Involved

Well the Burmese weren’t too happy about this detachment squatting in their borders, sent some people to fight them and then eventually brought the issue up with the United Nations (UN).

The Burmese government pressed charges against the KMT government for invading their borders and asked the KMT government in Taiwan (known as the Republic of China and at that time the representative of China in the UN) to withdraw.

Representative for Burma at 1953 UN General Assembly photo credit.

In April 1953, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution (see resolution 707) asking this detachment to withdraw or disarm.

A month later, a committee of representatives from Burma, Taiwan, Thailand and the USA met up in Bangkok to discuss how to facilitate the evacuation of these soldiers and their families to Taiwan.

Between November 1953 and March 1954, more than 7,000 soldiers and their families were evacuated to Taiwan via Thailand. However more than 4,000 members of the regiments and their families remained.

Don’t worry we are getting to the tea part soon!

Stranded Refugees in Thailand

The remaining members of these regiments were accepted into northern Thailand near the border of Burma as refugees and filed a petition to the KMT government in Taiwan asking for relief and assistance. Soon after the Thai and Taiwan governments began discussions about how to manage this “lost regiment” stuck in the mountainous northern border hinterlands of Thailand.

Thailand came up with a solution that served their purposes: if these soldiers could help Thailand fight the “communist” Miao-Hmong tribal group in Thailand’s northern border area, Thailand would be happy to give these lost regiment soldiers and their families land in what is now Mae Salong and a legal status.

(Sounds to me like a convenient categorization for an ethnic minority tribal group that the Thai government found problematic at the time).

Taiwan Establishes Long Term Connections

Taiwan also agreed to support their soldiers stranded so far away. A semi-official (meaning semi-state sponsored) relief organization in Taiwan, the Free China Relief Association (FCRA), established in 1950 to provide aid to refugees from China in Taiwan, started appropriating money to assist these refugees in Thailand.

By 1980, FCRA had started mapping out long-term development economic, education, and cultural assistance plans and sent a group of representatives in 1982 to help the community of refugees learn agricultural production, animal husbandry and other job skills suited to their environment.

Freshly picked leaves being withered © 2016 Tranquil Tuesdays

Taiwan Teaches Tea Cultivation

With Taiwan’s expertise in high mountain oolong tea cultivation and Mae Salong’s suitable tea growing climate and terroir, teaching Mae Salong’s refugee community to cultivate Taiwanese style oolong tea became a natural agricultural industry FCRA helped launch.

All the cultivated tea plants (meaning not the wild Camelia Sinensis Assamica trees) in Mae Salong are descendents of directly imported Taiwan tea cultivar saplings used for specialty oolong teas.

The tea growers in Mae Salong could tell us down to the classification number of Taiwan tea cultivar plant which ones they use. Furthermore, all the oolong teas we tried and observed in Mae Salong were grown, picked and made in the orthodox Taiwan style oolong.

Taiwan Style Oolong Teas Thrive in Mae Salong

As the local expertise and experience developed the oolong teas produced in Mae Salong became better and better.

The local industry eventually grew to what it is now: three big producers who all have close ties to Taiwanese guidance and up to ten smaller producers–still mostly small family run operations.

In the last 10 years, the market for Mae Salong’s Taiwanese style oolongs made in Thailand has also expanded. Mostly, the market is other tea drinkers in Thailand but these special teas are also finding fans outside of Thailand. Recently a few tea growing plantations have earned USDA organic status.

Tasting many of the oolong teas from Mae Salong, I could definitely taste the affinity and heritage of the original Taiwanese style oolongs each type is based on and enjoyed each one.

But of course with differing terroir and a younger expertise base there are differences in overall taste and mouth-feel. You could taste the characteristic green, orchid, floral and vegetable notes but they often finished with a different flourish.

It is fascinating to see how culturally aligned to Taiwan and Taiwanese tea culture the residents of Mae Salong are given they are so much further away geographically from Taiwan. I was amused to see that they even serve tea in the Taiwanese gong fu tea style with smelling cups.

While the community of refugees, their families and now the next generation has made a home in Thailand, they still retain a separate identity as KMT Chinese speaking fluent Mandarin, Yunnanese dialect, and Thai, reading Chinese newspapers and maintaining their Chinese cultural identity.

I hope you have enjoyed this fascinating and relatively unknown little corner of crazy-interesting tea history as much as I do!