In late April, our store manager visited the ShanLinXi Fanzitian and Sanjieceng tea regions to check out the spring tea. It’s a bit of a mixed bag: the good news is that the spring tea here is “way better” than what we’re seeing in Alishan and Gukeng. On the downside, there’s still quite a bit of split shoot growth, which will definitely keep the harvesting and production teams on their toes.
One defining characteristic of this year’s spring tea is that “the further north you go, the better it grows,” largely due to higher rainfall in the northern areas. Take the Alishan tea region for example: Meishan, the northernmost part of Chiayi, is outperforming Zhuqi and Fanlu townships. Fanzitian and Sanjieceng are located even further north in Zhushan Township, Nantou. Their spring tea condition is completely different from Alishan’s—honestly, it’s leagues ahead!
Fanzitian Tea Region: Fanzitian is only about 30 to 40 kilometers away from the Alishan tea region, which isn’t far at all. With Alishan’s spring tea yield dropping by more than half this year, I initially figured Fanzitian wouldn’t fare much better. To my surprise, it’s holding onto about 80% of last year’s yield, and some gardens even pulled in more than last year. Considering the drought, that’s a pretty pleasant surprise. Of course, fresh leaf quality still depends heavily on farm management and irrigation. Gardens that haven’t solved their water shortages are dealing with severe split shoot issues. Overall quality? I’d give it a 70.
Sanjieceng Tea Region: Right next door to Fanzitian, so the tea growth conditions are pretty much six of one, half a dozen of the other. It all comes down to irrigation management, with yields sitting around 70% of last year. Whether due to water scarcity or not, the manager felt that Sanjieceng’s split shoot problem is even worse than Fanzitian’s. Overall quality is around a 65. Gardens above 1,500 meters won’t be harvested until sometime in May, so it’s too early to tell how the quality will turn out.
This year’s spring teas from Fanzitian and Sanjieceng are running about two weeks later than usual. The mid-elevation (around 1,000 meters) gardens started harvesting in mid-April, while the high-elevation (1,500 meters) plots won’t be ready until May. One major challenge for this season’s harvest and production has been uneven growth and split shoots (bimodal growth), meaning many tea gardens have had to harvest in batches (Figure 6 shows the same tea plant needing two separate passes). This really puts our harvest scheduling and tea-making process to the test. We’ve sampled three batches of spring tea so far, but the quality isn’t quite at its peak yet. Things will kick into high gear in late April and early May, so we’ll see if we can unearth some real gems then!
