2013 TOST - Hands on Making Jade Oolong ( Visit Garden, Plucking)

2011 TOST - Visit an Oranic Tea Garden in Mingjian (10/18/2011)

After our stop by Hong-Hsin Tea Nursery, we then come to see one of domestic certified organic tea garden in Mingjian, Nantou. The owner is our good friend, Mr. Cheng Cheng-Ching. (He helps us to produce a slideshow for demonstration on the traditional Oolong Hand Rolling ) Mr. Chen and his wife greet us at the road side, and we have to take a distant walk to a far corner land and it is isolated from other tea fields and surrounded with natural forest. We can tell how the environment there is protected ecologically. Mr. Chen has developed a few different cultivars on this organic tea garden and he got high demand for his tea with very limited supply. This is a great experience for all of us. I finally got to meet and see the Big Spider that was told to be drawn to catch the green leaf hoppers during the season.

2011 TOST - Old Bush Assam Garden (10/18/2011)

Taiwan Bear (Mr. Liang) leads us to see an old bush tea field that he and his family manage. Those Assam bushes average over 56 years old... the plantation was given up when domestic market for Oolong was rising back in 70's. These old bushes were buried by Beatles nuts trees or other plants...totally forgotten. About 3 years ago, Liang and his family started to search for old tea fields and tried to get these tea gardens back. Apparently, they have done a great job and those old bushes seem to grow very happily. The leaves plucked from these old Assam bushes - recognized by tea connoisseurs, high demand with limited supply. This could be a piece of great tea story.

2011 TOST - Visit Wang-Ting Tea Garden (10/19/2011)

Making tea also requires patience. During the indoor withering... Steve and Mr. Wang took us to visit the famous Wang-Ting tea garden. Tommy was extremely busy to take good shots for our members...enjoy these beautiful photos and share the joy of our TOST members!

2010 TOST - Visit Jia Tien Organic Tea Garden

On 10/19/2010, we took bus and left Taipei in the early morning for a three day south-bound field trip. In the bus, most members are excited and busy chatting, though some are still having their jet lag...
Before we heading to TRES/Yuchih Branch, we made a stop to visit Jia Tien Organic Tea Garden located in Minjian, Nantou County. The owner is Mr. Chen, who got NOP Organic Certified for his tea plantation. Our members got to check out his tea garden and listen to his presentation right at the tea field.

2009 TOST - Study tea plants on the fields @Wenshan (6/22/2009)

While we are waiting for indoor withering at Wenshan Branch, Jackson and David asked Mr. Tsai, the Assoicate agronomist, to guide our group to the tea fileds...Every one is busy catching or photoing the magical Green Leaf Hopper. TRES is experiencing organic tea plantation, so we got chance to learn different ways of handling those insects and weeds...
This is only our first day, and many members have felt the intense courses we have arranged for our program! More to see, more to learn...

2008 TOST - Gaoshan Cha, here we come! Shanlinsi (10/26/2008)

After our Jade Oolong Review Cupping, we took two mini buses to head on High Mountains. We were arranged to visit two of the famous 18 mountains in Shanlinsi area. The first mountain top we stopped is Jugewan, the owner is Mr. Huang. His tea plant is very high-tech alright. Our group members were too excited to take photos all over the mountain...The second mountain top is Mr. Chen's garden at the Lungfenghsia. Again, too many to see, and only to see is to believe how steep the tea garden is located...The elevation for both mountains are about 6600 ft high...
We were wondering: how do they overcome to ontrol the solar withering at such a high elevation environment? How do they solve the problem with limited space for the indoor withering and oxidizing? Jackson and Norman leaded the way to answer all our questions. We did appreciate the best hospitality from Mr. Huang and Mr. Chen. This trip indeed is an eye-open experience. Even later, we were down to Lugu to visit the Museum by Lugu Tea farmers' Association, we were still talking about our trip to Shanlinsi. Apparently, after Shanlinsi, our members were less interested in Tung-Ting. We were rushed to catch our high speed train back to Taipei that evening. (Well, we did have good time on the bullet train of Taiwan...later.)

2008 TOST - Tea Gardens at Yilan (10/29/2008)

On 10/29/2008, one day after our Taiwan Oolongs Study Tour program officially ended on the previous evening...due to several members' flights are late evening of 10/29, TTMA is very nice to arrange the bonus tour to visit Yilan area...this is something new for TTMA, too. We were there to see few tea gardens and unbelievably that few of our members enjoy the Aged Oolongs and the Award Winning Jade Oolong from Mr. Wu. They bought all of his inventory. That is something unexpected. We also visit Taiwan Traditional Arts Center and some of our group members were rushing for final minute shopping for souvenirs to take home... On the way back, we visited a tea farmers co-op and have some fine tea they made... This bonus trip actually will set a good example for TTMA on its planning for future schedule of other study groups here in Taiwan.

2008 TOST - Havest the fresh leaf (10/25/2008)

On the early morning of 10/25/2008, we took our chartered bus from Dong Wu Hotel, Taipei Old Town, all the way to MingJien, Nantou County. Our first stop is to visit a tea garden belongs to farmer Mr. Chen, at Sun Po Keng. TTMA pre-arranged for our group members to observe fresh leaves that harvested by machine.
(*We were told that we will have more opportunities to view hand-plucked during our trip.)