Taixing TeaTaixing Tea
Where to buy it
Flavour
Light-fragrance style
Taixing is at 1,000 metres, known for its waterfall and heavy with moisture.
Humidity is good for the bush and bad for the finished tea. Leaf is only stable at three to five per cent water content; above that it starts to lose flavour. Relative humidity in Taiwan's coasts and hills sits above seventy per cent for much of the year, and opened tea left in the air takes up damp within days.
How to check: squeeze a pinch of dry leaf. A clean, brittle snap means it is dry. If it feels tough and will not break, it has taken up moisture, and a gentle low-temperature drying will bring it back.
Unfired. Honey-yellow, light flower and fruit, smooth and mild.
Fair priceverified
One jin is 600 g. Below NT$800, be sceptical.
A reasonable range is NT$1,300–2,800 per 600 g. Below NT$800, ask more questions.
What to ask when buying this
One region can span 700 m to 1,700 m, with several times the price difference. The same name does not mean the same grade.
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.
Specifications
About the origin
Taixing lies in the southeast of Meishan, between Taiping and Ruili. The land runs southeast to northwest, cut by rivers into gorges, falls and cliffs. The gardens sit between six hundred and a thousand metres, with the Caoling old trail in front and the Yuntan falls behind. Strong sun by day, heavy dew at night — conditions that suit TTES No. 12. In recent years the autumn migration of cattle egrets has brought the place a second kind of fame.
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
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 (23.5550, 120.6200). This marks the growing area, not one specific garden.
Alishan Tea Region9
What there is to do here
6 routes Two days possible Meishan: Ruili, Ruifeng, Taixing, Taihe・Zhuqi and Shizhuo・Dabang, Tefuye, Lijia — Tsou villages
This district has the most itineraries, and nearly all of them run two days. Ruili, Ruifeng, Taixing and Taihe in Meishan are threaded together by old trails, bamboo, waterfalls and suspension bridges, and the guesthouses are the tea growers themselves. Further up are Zhuqi, Shizhuo and the Tsou villages. Every month of the year has its own crop.