Taipei Tea Culture Expo

One Hundred Years of Tea
Walking along the Chinese arcades infused with the smoky fragrance of jasmine tea, it was as if I were treading a carpet of wondrous and beautiful things.
I recall how we would make castles out of meter-square tea crates as building blocks, Hiding inside from the “enemy” beyond the walls in our play war.” Taipei-ologist Chuang Yung-ming, “Nostalgia for the Lanes of Taipei”



(The photos from《引領台北走向世界舞台的茶文化特刊》)

The words above refer to Kuiteh Street, an important trade area due to its proximity to the port, with its old, high-ceilinged arcades built against the perpetual flooding of the Tanshui River. The air was always full of the fragrance of jasmine, as this was the early 20th century, when jasmine tea and paochung tea were being exported. Prior to this, the English businessman John Dodd had started, in 1869, to ship Formosa Oolong tea to New York, the first chapter in the hundred-year history of Taiwanese tea exports that saw, in its most prosperous period, tea shipped to more than 80 countries, including Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Russia, Turkey, and Japan.



(Collected by Taiwan Storyland)
Great ExpectationsIn 1889, the governor of Taiwan, Liu Ming-chuan, asked businessmen to form the Cha Chiao Yung-he Hsing, an organisation that was to be the precursor to the Taipei Tea Merchants Association. The Chinese word chiao had the meaning or “to associate with” or “to trade with.” Liu had a lot of faith in the quality of Taiwanese tea, and wrote to merchants exhorting them to “work together, and do not seek only to benefit yourself.” The directors of the Tea Merchants Association made a succession of contributions to the industry, such as when Chen Tien-lai negotiated the abolishment of the tax on producing tea with the Japanese colonial governor, or when Chen Chao-chun led a contingent from the association to the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris, where Taiwanese oolong tea was awarded first prize.

The History of Chinese Tea

Prior to Lu Yu of the Tang dynasty, tea was used as a condiment together with salt for meals such as rice congee. In the High Tang, when emphasis was placed on the taste of food and drink, complex methods for steaming tea were developed. The Sung dynasty was a period in which art flourished, and powdered tea was whisked to produce a frothy beverage, with people even vying with each other in making the most attractive bowl of tea in an activity known as toucha, or the “tea competition.” During the Ming this pomp was put aside in favor of having tea as an everyday drink, and people now started using a small pot from which to pour tea into a small cup.

Tea, then, was originally seen as a very practical addition to food, but then the intricacies of its flavor were discovered and developed until it became almost decorative,before finally returning to being used in a simpler, more natural way.

Drinking tea with a peaceful mind, you can taste the words of Lu Yu, “tea is, by nature,frugal,not expansive”,or Emperor Hui-tsung’s profound words “tea has a true fragrance.” Tea can be seen as a drink, or the embodiment of a form of culture.

Tea Culture in Life

After the all the history and geography of tea have been discussed, there’s still more to learn from this little cup of amber nectar – its role in our daily lives. Tea encapsulates so many things, as leading character, or simply in a supporting role. The appreciation of tea is intertwined with flower arrangement, drinking vessels, art, literature, music… and the human heart.
Tea paraphernalia used in everyday life began with the tea jars found on farms, the ceramic utensils of the Japanese colonial era, and glass cups used to drink jasmine tea on trains in the 1970s. Then, with increasing prosperity, tastes became more refined, leading to items such as modern Taiwanese teapots, teapots made by contemporary Chinese masters, tenmoku bowls... affording ever more elegant ways to savor tea.A booming economy then saw large numbers of young Taiwanese going abroad and bringing back tea vessels from other countries. At the same time, Taiwan made a reputation for itself with brand names such as Franz Porcelain and Lin’s Ceramics Studio. In the end, beauty lies in our actions, and it is up to us to create a “New Age of Tea” together. (Written by He Jian何健)

Taiwanese Tea Utensils
This is the first time that such a comprehensive collection of Taiwanese tea utensils, jars and leaves has been put on display.Tea utensils can tell us a lot about tea’s role in history.



Rustic pottery jars once held tea for quenching thirst while working in the fields. They did not resemble the refined porcelain that came from the official kilns of the Song and Ming dynasties, but rather adopted the firing techniques of Taiwan’s Japanese colonizers. In the 20th century, black tea became popular, as did larger teapots and cups. New immigrants from mainland China were more used to drinking green tea, and they accommodated to the environments of offices and trains by drinking out of glass cups. In leisure time, sitting in the shade of a tree, or at a stand outside a temple, people would sit and chat while they prepared tea with a small teapot and drank it out of small cups in the traditional manner known as gongfucha. Tea has always been a perennial presence in life, and as the economy went from strength to strength, people began to contemplate their relationships with nature, with things and with other people, trying to find a state of harmony, and an aesthetic of tranquility. This was all reflected in the paraphernalia of the rites of tea. (Written by He Jian何健)

Nothing like a White Cup It might have been simply from fatigue! I have looked around for cups, bought them, collected them, exchanged them day in and day out for over ten years now, I’ve seen all types, countless numbers of them: popular brands, designs by masters, eye-catching shapes, interesting colors, but these no longer draw my attention. Now, I am

Designed by Yeh Yi-landrawn to the most basic, purest white. There’s more room to breathe, greater depths to ponder beyond the realm of color. Though perhaps less ostentatious, it has an alluring appearance deriving from the curves and angles, which have their own rhythm. Also, whether it is holding coffee, tea, herb tea or buckwheat tea, it sets off the flavor well. What’s more, the very act of drinking requires you to slowly stretch – pure bliss in this frantic world of ours. (Written by Yeh Yi-lan)

The Way of Tea in Modern Times
In the Ming dynasty it was forbidden to drink tea in large groups, and from this time people started brewing tea privately. The purple clay teapots of Yixing gained favor, small pots that would retain both the heat and aroma of the tea, and that would develop a patina with a lustrous quality, likened to jade, after prolonged use. These qualities proved very popular.Yixing ceramics come in a wide range of hues – chestnut, blue, black, green, pear, cinnabar purple, crabapple red... With well-crafted spouts, lids, and straight-lined handles, they pour beautifully, adorned with verse and the potter’s seal stamp, which add value to the pot. Continuing the legacy of Yixing firing techniques, modern pots are even more accomplished, and eminently collectible.

Tenmoku Bowls
Even today many people drink their tea from tenmoku bowls, a practice that originated in the Song dynasty, when powdered tea was whisked into a froth: the green liquid and white froth were perfectly complimented by the deep black of the tenmoku bowl. However, these bowls are also made with golden, red, yellow-brown or white glazes. Tenmoku bowls were originally produced in the Jian kilns near Jian’an in China’s Fujian Province, and strictly speaking they should be called “Jian bowls.” Tenmoku is actually the Japanese word for them. One story goes that a Japanese monk, having studied for a time at a Chinese temple called Tianmu (“Tenmoku” in Japanese), took one of the bowls back to Japan. According to a different theory, the name derives from the markings in the glaze that come out during the firing process, which look like constellations in the night sky.
Tianmu in Chinese, and tenmoku in Japanese, literally mean “the eyes of Heaven.” The latter story highlights one of the aesthetic aspects of tenmoku bowls: the patterns that appear in their glaze, resembling brush marks, leaves, turtle shells, calligraphy or chrysanthemum flowers.



Tea around the World

Tea, cha in Chinese, is known as cha in Japanese, chaya in India, and boeja in Tibet; in Iran it is known as tzai, in Russia as tchai and in Israel as tae; the English word is tea, the French the, the German tee, the Danish te, and the Dutch thee. In Fukien dialect it is pronounced te.

The original pronunciations cha or te were transmitted either along the land route or the sea route: cha went via Japan through Eastern Europe and into Russia; te went the sea route, hitting the shores of Europe after the British East India company purchased 143 lbs of Chinese tea in 1669.

Tea was also a kind of cultural blueprint that could be exported to other countries: Japanese chado, meaning The Way of Tea, also known as the tea ceremony,has its origins in the

Sung dynasty temple tea ceremony, the practice of steaming tea is derived from the Ming dynasty literati, the Korean tea ceremony, dado, takes its form from the Tang dynasty, and afternoon tea in Europe originated in the fact that the aristocracy viewed tea as a rare luxury from the Orient, with all the cultural implications that that entailed.




Discover tea, indulge your senses with the nuances of wood, fruit, flowers, cinnamon and milk to be found in tea, as you would with the finest wines.
The more you discover tea you will see that from the completely unfermented green tea to the completely fermented black tea, Taiwan has an accomplished understanding of how to produce tea, second to none in the world. The Tea Research and Extension Station is busy developing new types of tea, adding to the legend of Taiwanese tea in the Chinese-speaking world.

Discover tea! Rediscover the joy of drinking tea! There are 21,500 hectares of tea plantations in Taiwan, and these are taking on a new appearance, with biotech and organic plantations. A little oriental culture is now being sent out into the world as tins of tealeaves, a new vision of tea worth discovering.


http://tea.culture.gov.tw/tw/01cluture/01-06-02.php
臺北老茶街
幽幽茶香,悉悉嗦嗦說百年茶業…
「我踩著「亭仔腳」(騎樓)鋪滿薰製花茶的茉莉花,那宛如是花團錦簇的地毯。」 我們曾用近百公分立方的包裝茶箱當積木,疊成城堡,躲在裡面和外面當『敵人』的玩伴做攻防遊戲。」
臺北學學者莊永明《戀戀臺北,情繫港町》
文中描述的是貴德街,古早騎樓做得高,是因為臨淡水河易淹水,又因鄰港口,所以成為貿易重鎮,空氣裡的茉莉茶香,氛圍是20世紀初包種茶香片外銷的時代,在這之前,1869年英商約翰‧杜德(John Dodd)將Formosa Oolong Tea烏龍茶運往紐約,開啟臺灣茶外銷百年史頁,極盛時輸出到英國、加拿大、澳洲、俄國、土耳其、日本等多達80餘國。
茶郊永和興的期許 1889年臺灣巡撫劉銘傳命業者組「茶郊永和興」,即「茶商公會」(台北市茶商業同業公會)的前身,郊有結交及交易的意思,劉銘傳對臺灣茶的品質寄於厚望,著文期許業者同心共濟,杜絕私利。爾後「茶商公會」歷任會長果然諸多頗有建樹,如陳天來與日治總督協商廢製茶稅,陳朝駿則於1900年率團至巴黎參加萬國博覽會,臺灣烏龍茶因此得了金牌。

茶郊媽祖的祝禱
在茶葉殊盛的年代,每年需要一兩萬名茶工,從福建安溪渡過黑水溝來台灣採茶製茶,春來冬返,有些落腳定居,成就一頁台灣移民史;唯臨行前,總要到媽祖廟膜拜祝禱平安,信仰的力量讓媽祖分了香火,在台灣奉為「茶郊媽祖」,每年農曆九月二十二,相傳茶神陸羽生日那天,茶人們會祭祀「茶郊媽祖」。
臺灣茶國際化的推手

19世紀英商約翰‧杜德(John Dodd)的「寶順洋行」(Dodd & Co)向美國促銷台灣烏龍茶,李春生為買辦居中穿梭,是台灣茶國際化的啟始頁。至今大稻埕仍留有李春生捐建的禮拜堂,及後人建的「李春生紀念堂」供憑弔。

台灣最早外銷烏龍茶 福爾摩沙烏龍茶打前鋒銷往世界,主要市場有美國、英國、加拿大、澳洲及香港等地,那時還沒有小包裝的茶葉。 包種茶後起之秀 1896年時,大稻埕境內的茶商多達253家,開始有琳琅滿目的小包裝,同時包種茶繼烏龍茶掘起,初以東南亞華僑為主要市場,包括印尼爪哇、香港、泰國、新加坡及越南等。 茉莉香片換金披鍊 包種茶有薰花的香片和未薰花的,香片帶動萬華茉莉花經濟作物,盛況時期有言「加蚋仔的金披鍊比大安的牛索還要多」。紅茶外銷達80餘國 日治時代為避免台灣烏龍茶影響日本綠茶外銷,遂開發紅茶,因而讓福爾摩莎更遠達世界各角落,從早期的土耳其、俄國,進一步擴展到美、日、智利、英、荷蘭、德國及巴基斯坦等達八十餘國。

悠遊時光河流,繼續喝茶……
‧註1869年英商杜德運送到美的茶葉總重量,至今在史料上未見統一數字。 ‧資料來源:茶商公會統計數字、農林廳檢驗局合格出口數字、《茶、糖、樟腦與台灣之社會經濟變遷1800~1895》、《台灣 包種茶的製造與發展》、陳渙堂著作《台灣茶》、茗心坊等。
http://tea.culture.gov.tw/en/02preface/index.php
http://tea.culture.gov.tw/en/02preface/index.php
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