Formosa oolong tea
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Formosa Oolong is oolong (烏龍茶) teas grown and produced in Taiwan. Taiwan is also known as Formosa from the Portuguese Ilha Formosa, meaning “beautiful island”.
[edit] History
The earliest record of tea trees found in Taiwan can be traced back to 1717 in Shi Sha Lien (水沙連), present-day Yuchih (魚池) and Puli (埔里), Nantou County.
According to Lien Hen (連橫; Taiwanese historian [1]), in the late 18 century, Ke Chao (柯朝) brought some tea tree from Fuchien, China[2] into Taiwan and planted in Jie Yu Keng (櫛魚坑), currently known as Rueifang (瑞芳) [3]in Taipei County (台北縣)[4]. However, transaction records indicated that tea business in Muzha (木柵, Taipei 台北市) area started as early as late 18th century. Thus we can believe that tea has been merchandised in Taiwan for more than 2 centuries.
In 1855, Lin Feng Chi (林鳳池) brought the Cing Shin Oolong(青心烏龍) plants from Wuyi Mountain (Fujien Province, China)(武夷山，福建，中國) into Taiwan and planted in Dongding Village (Lugu, Nantou County, Taiwan)(凍頂鄉，南投，台灣). This is said to be the origin of Dongding Oolong [5] from Taiwan.
In 1867, English tea trader Jon Dodd started a tea company in Wanhua, Taipei [6](萬華，台北市), and started to sell Taiwanese oolong tea to the world under the name "Formosa Oolong", and the Pouchong oolong was considered to be more flowery than Baihao Oolong, Pouchong was exported under the name "Formosa Pouching". Formosa Baihao Oolong is very fruity in taste and got the name "Oriental Beauty" from Queen
Elizabeth II in the 1960s, thus "Formosa Oolong" became popular in the western world for "Oriental Beauty" (東方美人茶).
In fact, Dongding(凍頂), Baihao(白毫) and Pouchong(包種) are all categorized as Oolong tea, which contributes a large part of Taiwan tea industry. As Taiwan is lucky to have great environment for tea growing, and with the developing of tea technology, Taiwan has produced many top quality teas, all can be called as “Formosa Tea”. The best known ones including "Formosa Dongding oolong", "Formosa Alishan Oolong", "Formosa Wenshan Pouchong","Formosa Oriental Beauty", "Formosa Shanlinxi Oolong", "Formosa Jade Oolong" and more.
