Gau San Cha
That’s the transliteration (from Mandarin) of the number one reason I wanted to go to Taiwan. We were asked by rIAm’s cousin if there was anything we needed to see or do on our trip. She didn’t mean things like see the Taj Mahal. rIAm wanted to see a rice paddy. I should have said I wanted to drink high mountain tea (gau san cha) on the mountain. And we did. And it was amazing.
High mountain tea is a type of oolong tea that is grown at 1200 meters and higher. The good stuff is picked by hand, and after going through an extensive process after picking but before consuming, you still end up with whole leaves, typically with a couple leaves connected at a common stem. The process involves varying degrees of fermentation, although our preference is probably 20-40% fermented. This gives the tea a nice roasty-richness taste and makes the tea leaves slightly darkened around the edges, which you can see after brewing. After fermenting outdoors, the tea goes indoors to be fermented some more and then roasted and dried. The tea leaves coil up into small balls.
Each tea shop always offers tasting. Nobody buys tea without tasting, and the tasting process is a wonderful ritual of its own. The tea is placed into a cup-like dish with no handle, or a very small teapot. Hot water is added but then poured off very quickly, typically into a bowl that the pot is resting in, and/or over the cups we will drink out of. This essentially rinses the tea, and then warms the cups and also keeps the outside of the brewing pot warm. Then fresh hot water is added to the tea and about 30 seconds later you are ready to taste the tea. The leaves can be brewed 6-8 times in this fashion, although it takes a little longer each time. Each brewing tastes a bit different, especially the first couple, and so a tea tasting always involves many rounds. Suffice to say, none of the tastings were disappointing!
At least for us, it was also customary to need a bathroom after a full tasting!
All of the tea we tasted was harvested this winter from Alishan mountain (ah-lee-san), and the one we liked best was grown at 1700m and higher. We sent a good bit home, so hopefully you can join us for a tea party sometime when we’re back in North America.
Our first tasting at a tea shop came in Alishan, at the Ali Mountain Lien Heng Tea Shop, run by the wonderful Tu Lin Che. This tea had a light and fresh aroma and was very smooth tasting. Each brewing was very nice, with no real bitterness. This experience was truly wonderful, and made possible by our first two traveler friends, Janet and Sean (shin), sisters from Malaysia who befriended us, helped us out, and went to the tasting with us, translating the whole time. The shop owner got a kick out of the two white folk who were so enamored with her and her tea, while the two Asian girls (of Chinese heritage!) were much less interested. We had a wonderful time; hopefully I’ll get some photos on flickr soon, but this connection is very slow for uploading.
We did several more tastings, in Alishan and back in Taipei, and each was wonderful in its own way. The beauty of this is that not only are we shopping for the tea we (ok, me) love, but we are getting wonderful experiences and interactions with local people. And while many foreigners enjoy this tea, not many white folks come looking for it compared to Japanese, Chinese or other Asians.
These experiences were also reflective of Taiwanese people in general. Always welcoming and gracious, they were happy to have us try their food and see their sights. I haven’t read rIAm’s notes yet, so there may be some overlap, but here are my highlights of Taiwan.
> Grilled squid at the night market is phenomenal. I mean, make-every-other-squid-I’ve-ever-eaten-taste-not-as-good phenomenal. And the guy preparing it is a wizard at making it come out just right.
> If every subway were as easy to use and as clean as Taiwan’s MRT, and all train systems as efficient and easy as Taiwan’s, people would stop driving cars.
> I wish there were night markets – or really, any markets – like the night markets in Taipei in North America. Shilin Chicago, anybody?
> Although some of the Chinese food we get in the US or Canada was on par with what we got in Taiwan, Chinese food has never tasted better than it did in Taiwan. Even the food courts were fantastic. In some ways, especially the food courts!
> Considering how little Chinese we could speak, and how little English Taiwanese people could speak, we communicated pretty darn well.
> There are more 7-11’s in Taiwan than there are in the USA.
> It’s kind of hard to believe how many scooters were on the road, and how fearless the drivers were.
> I could get used to bathing in hot springs. My body felt super refreshed after our time in the hot green-sulfur waters at Beitou.
> It’s kind of wild to see so many Western products, but even wilder to compare how those products are sold in Taiwan. Some companies fully translate their packaging while others don’t translate anything and a sticker with some Chinese on it gets slapped on the back of the package. And plenty of packaging with a mix of Chinese and English.
> Taiepei 101 might just be my favorite skyscraper, although it looks rather lonely in the Taipei skyline. (I’m writing this from Kuala Lampur, and I’ve now seen the Petronas Towers, and they’re only ok to me. Cool to look at, yes, but they don’t grab me like 101 did, or how the Chicago skyline always does.
> For those looking for a vacation destination, I really can’t recommend Taiwan enough. There are many amazing sights, sounds, and tastes, and they don’t require being as adventurous as you might think. Of course, there are plenty of things for the adventurous, too!
> I would enjoy, one day, going back to Taiwan. And it wouldn’t just be for the tea.
