SancengpingSancengping
Flavour
Delicate aroma with clean sweetness
Sanzengping sits at 1,700 metres. In Taiwanese place names, ping means a relatively flat shelf in the mountains, and san zeng means three of them stacked.
Shelves matter to a tea garden. On a steep slope, water will not stay and rain carries the topsoil and fertiliser away, so the bush grows poorly and picking is hard. Most of Shanlinxi's good tea comes off terrain like this.
When a tea name contains ping, hu, lun or keng, it is describing landform. Learn those four and you can picture a garden from its name alone.
Unfired.
Fair priceverified
One jin is 600 g. Below NT$1,400, be sceptical.
A reasonable range is NT$2,000–3,500 per 600 g. Below NT$1,400, ask more questions. "High mountain tea" has no legal definition in Taiwan. Ask for the exact elevation and the road marker (K number). Competition-grade lots command a large premium. Ask which association ran the competition, which year, and for the seal.
What to ask when buying this
"High mountain tea" has no legal definition in Taiwan. The K number is a road milepost — the most concrete way to pin down origin. Asking it signals you have done your homework.
Grading standards differ between associations, so awards are not comparable across competitions. Genuine lots come with a seal and certificate.
Spring and winter lots fetch the highest prices and the best aroma; summer and autumn are a step down in both.
If they will not let you taste but want you to buy 600 g of something expensive, walk away. It is the simplest and most effective filter there is.
Specifications
About the origin
In Da'an Village, Zhushan Township, Nantou — the southern end of the Shanlinxi range. The gardens are wrapped in old forest and the area is small.
These figures will be updated if they change.
Brewing
Why this temperature
Ball-rolled oolong is tightly wound, and the first pour only reaches the outside of the pellet, so it needs water close to boiling to open at all. If it does not open, the later steeps swing between thin and heavy. The first and second steeps often take the same time or less, because the leaf does not truly unfurl until the second.
Temperatures follow the official category guidance. Source: TRES — Effects of water quality and temperature on tea liquor
Common mistakes with this tea
95°C or above. Too cool and the roast aroma never opens, leaving it flat.
The window for temperature and timing is narrow. On your first try use slightly less leaf and shorter steeps.
Rolled-ball leaf needs the first infusion to open up; the second is then shorter.
Best drunk within two months.
What to eat with it
A chilled jelly has almost no flavour of its own; a heavily roasted tea would bury it. A fragrant, lightly oxidised tea lifts it instead.
This one is Taiwan-only — not available overseas
Here are the closest teas we can actually ship you:
Alishan High Mountain TeaAlishan 1700m 1700 m Milky Osmanthus2.0–4.0kLocation accuracy: named locality (23.6200, 120.7600). This marks the growing area, not one specific garden.
Shanlinxi Tea Region9
What there is to do here
1 routes Day trip Shanlinxi・Around Yangzaiwan and Longfengxia
Above 1,500 m, forty minutes further up the road from Lugu. This is ginkgo, moso bamboo and cloud country; tea is one thing among several here, though it is the one that keeps.