Waiting for a train on the terrace at Tongluo Tea Factory

A 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.

The building sits on the crest of the slope. From the rows below it reads as one long grey eave slanting across the sky with a continuous band of glass beneath it. Walk up and round to the front and that band of windows is the making floor and the shop, with tea outside them again. The building has no front and no back; both sides face the garden.

The board of train times on the terrace

The terrace faces the valley: tea rows close in, fields beyond them, hills at the back. The TRA mountain line runs through those fields, which is why there is a board of departure times up here — the factory put it out for the people who come to photograph trains. Sit down with a cup and you also know when the next one is due.

Early January up here is grey-green. The rows are still green, but the red clay between them shows through under fallen leaves, and the silvergrass along the edges has all gone to plume, the white heads combed one way by the wind. These hills take their chrysanthemums in November and wait on the tung blossom in May. In January there was only the cold and the quiet of the whole planting, and not a soul on it.

What this plateau grows

Taiwan Tea Corporation’s own description: a misty hill terrace, acid red clay, a wide day-night swing and high humidity, giving a thick leaf with a strong aroma. The garden runs to 16 hectares, and the main teas are Oriental Beauty, green tea and honey-scented black tea. Planting, feeding, weeding, picking and making are all done by hand, and the leaf is tested batch by batch to SGS certification.

The house tea is Oriental Beauty. The inner hills of Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli have made it for over a century, and the leafhopper is the hinge: buds it has fed on stay small, curl and yellow, and the bush answers with honey. The picking window sits around the Grain in Ear solar term, when the leafhopper is busiest. Most districts race for the tenderest leaf of early spring; here they wait on an insect in early summer.

Getting there, and what it costs