ZhushanZhushan
Where to buy it
Flavour
Light-fragrance style
Zhushan is at 800 metres in Nantou, the gateway to the Shanlinxi road.
Leaf from eight hundred metres is thick and high in pectin. Pectin is what gives a brew its body, coating the mouth with a slick film once the leaf opens — a texture many people remember as sweetness.
To tell them apart, hold a mouthful without swallowing. The slick layer across the tongue is pectin; sweetness lights up the tip first.
Oxidation two, firing two. Bright green leaf, a soft and rounded taste.
Fair priceverified
One jin is 600 g. Below NT$800, be sceptical.
A reasonable range is NT$1,400–2,800 per 600 g. Below NT$800, ask more questions.
What to ask when buying this
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.
A scannable producer record beats any verbal assurance.
Production date, expiry, origin of raw material, seller name and phone — if any is missing, do not buy.
Specifications
About the origin
Zhushan is one of Nantou's main tea townships, with 1,369 hectares in 2019. In town there is a tea culture hall converted from a disused factory — moved in in 2008, refitted by 2014 — laying out a short history of Taiwanese tea and its categories, with the founding family's old implements, a film of the processing, and staff who walk you through it. A reasonable place to start if you want to understand what you are buying before you buy it.
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.
Rolled-ball leaf needs the first infusion to open up; the second is then shorter.
Best drunk within two months.
The most common beginner regret is buying 600 g on the first try. Buy a jin only after you know you like it.
What to eat with it
Glutinous rice clings and the sweetness lingers on the tongue. A tea with some astringency clears it away.
This one is Taiwan-only — not available overseas
Location accuracy: township level (23.6800, 120.6800). 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.