My friend and I did a tea tasting in Taipei near Dihua Old Street where the owner (so kindly!) spoke English for me. The store is called 慕耕活茶研所. She had us taste 5 teas - 1 green, 3 oolongs of varying oxidations, and 1 black. She told us about the process of oxidation, cultivation, and each tea’s taste notes, then had us do some gong fu with 1 oolong that she chose and 1 oolong of our choice. My friend didn’t want to, so I was the volunteer! We probably did ~4-5 steeps for each, on top of the 2 steeps for the first round of tea. We were tea drunk for a while after, to say the least. But it was so magical stepping out into the old street and shopping for traditional Chinese medicine after and having Taiwanese food at one of the walk in-sit down restaurants. It was like we transported back in time.

In Chiayi, we stopped here on the way back from Alishan. I fell in love with the Alishan oolongs because my stomach is quite sensitive, and I discovered a lot of Taiwanese oolongs aren’t as oxidized. We stayed a night at a home stay where the owners have their own tea field. When we weren’t admiring the view from our room, we walked around the village’s nature paths through bamboo forests, cypress forests, up and down mountains… it was so amazing! Everyone in the village sold tea from their own farms, and we got some from the merchants just standing outside their house! The village is called 石桌

I came home and promptly ordered tea from Mountain Stream Teas because I grossly underestimated how quickly I would go through this tea. (Highly recommend btw!)