Liugui TeaLiugui Tea
Where to buy it
Flavour
Wild tea character with a distinctive honey aroma
This is Taiwan's native mountain tea, growing wild in old forest at around a thousand metres in the centre and south of the island.
Native leaf is larger than cultivated leaf and higher in tannin, which makes it hard to handle. So the oxidation is pushed to nearly sixty per cent, converting the rougher edges into a honey note.
Liugui is in the mountains of Kaohsiung. Typhoon Morakot hit this area hard in 2009, damaging gardens and roads, and output has never returned to any great volume.
⚠️ Wild is a useful word in the tea trade, and an easily abused one. Ask whether it was foraged or is a cultivated planting of the native variety. The prices are very different.
Fair priceestimated
One jin is 600 g. Below NT$400, be sceptical.
A reasonable range is NT$700–1,500 per 600 g. Below NT$400, ask more questions. This range is estimated from nearby regions and elevation; it has not been verified against listed prices.
What to ask when buying this
Real honey aroma comes from insect bites and is summer-only. What you find in winter is usually old stock.
This price range is estimated from nearby regions and elevation and has not been verified, so compare for yourself.
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
Liugui is named for six turtle-shaped hills beside the river. Three fifths of it is mountain, from three hundred metres to twelve hundred, with Tengzhi the highest. Two kinds of tea grow here. The small-leaf sort is mostly at Erjituan and Xinfa — Qingxin Oolong and Jin Xuan, about eighteen hectares. **Native wild tea** is planted by only a few, concentrated on Nanfeng and Minghai mountains next to Taoyuan district; it is the largest planting of wild Taiwanese tea anywhere on the island.
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 (22.9960, 120.6320). This marks the growing area, not one specific garden.
Southern Tea Region5
What there is to do here
1 routes Day trip Liugui・Meinong
Kaohsiung’s tea is scattered: Liugui and Namasia up in the hills, Meinong down on the plain, with Motianling, Taoyuan and Maolin each off on their own. What sets this district apart is the wild tea of Liugui — trees that were on those mountains before we were. A day can take in the plain at Meinong and the hills at Liugui.