Tea houses
Tea houses
Out to the hills and the sea for good tea; then still by the window, listening to the rain.
Waiting for a train on the terrace at Tongluo Tea FactoryA long low factory lies above the tea rows on the hill terrace at Jiuhu in Tongluo, Miaoli, its wall of glass facing the valley. On the terrace stands a board of train times: the TRA mountain line runs through the fields below. In early January the silvergrass beside the rows had already gone white.2026-01-02
Baozhong begins inside Taipei: the Nangang Tea Processing Demonstration CentreOn the hillside on Jiuzhuang Street, woven bamboo trays are racked tier on tier with numbers inked on their rims, and more hang from the ceiling. Beside them stand the tumbling drum and the rolling machines. Baozhong was worked out in this district more than a century ago; the centre is free to visit and closed on Mondays.2022-04-24
Seven hundred metres up, a whole hillside of tea: Xiongkong, SanxiaForty minutes out of Taipei into the hills at Sanxia, then ten kilometres up Zhulun Road. At the top is a bowl of a valley with tea rows curving down around it in rings and several big trees left standing where they already grew. I went over the Tomb Sweeping holiday in 2019 — since then the place has changed hands and changed its name.2019-04-05
A royal tea table in the hills: “Tea and Kings” at the Pinglin Tea MuseumThe only public museum in Taiwan devoted to tea, built as a southern-Fujian courtyard house in the Anxi manner. This year’s special exhibition, “Tea and Kings”, follows the leaf out of the East and into the courts of the West — and along the way, wagashi, yakgwa and the afternoon tea tray turn out to be branches of one story.2026-08-16
Mist, tea and a window on the world: the Taiwan Hakka Tea Culture MuseumA new museum on the hillside at Longtan, Taoyuan, opened at the end of 2022. One half is where Hakka tea comes from — Oriental Beauty, the Chin-shin-dapan cultivar, the leafhopper that bites it. The other half keeps six countries’ time on the wall, with a private tea room each for Britain, Türkiye, Germany, Taiwan, India and Japan. The same leaf, and what it becomes depends on where it lands.2026-05-16
A morning picking at Meijia, and a packet of your own tea to take homeThe morning session starts at 9:30 and finishes around 11:40 — two hours. First the history of the Muzha tea hills, then out into the garden to pick, then indoors to make it: firing, rolling, and everyone leaves with a packet of their own.2026-04-11