On August 2nd, we headed out to Toda Village on Qilai Mountain to check on the growth of the autumn tea. Compared to the so-so condition of Lishan autumn tea, Qilai Mountain autumn tea is looking “fantastic”—the store manager is giving it a stellar score of 85. But heavy rain rolled in the very next day, blocking the Tunyuan-Lushan road and throwing a wrench into the autumn tea quality. 🫤🫤
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Take a look at the photos, everyone. This year, the tea plants around Toda Village on Qilai Mountain are generally looking great. Well-managed tea gardens are yielding leaves that could easily pass for spring harvest grade—thick and plump with a waxy sheen on the surface. Tea leaves like these are practically a guarantee of great tea as long as the weather cooperates. Harvest was originally scheduled to kick off on August 5th, but heavy rain started pouring on the 3rd. Record-breaking rainfall blocked the roads, causing power outages and making it impossible for tea makers to get up the mountain, so the autumn harvest has to be postponed.
As things stand, the tea gardens and processing facilities haven’t suffered any damage, but there are numerous landslides all along the route from Puli, Wushe, Chunyang Tribe, Lushan Tribe, to Toda Village, and it’s hard to say when the roads will reopen. If the delay drags on too long, the leaves might become over-matured. Another challenge is that with all the mountain rain lately, the high moisture content in the tea leaves is going to be another major test for our processing team.
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With such great tea leaves in the Qilai Mountain tea region disrupted by heavy rain, we can only say that good things take time, and we hope it stops raining over the next few days. Based on past experience, the autumn harvest on Qilai Mountain will run until the end of August. As long as there are two or more consecutive days of clear weather, it will be the prime time for producing exceptional tea. We’ll head back up the mountain then to hunt for tea, with the goal of finding top-tier goods that easily rival the spring harvest!
Note: The road foundation from Lushan to Toda Village has completely collapsed, and with landslides everywhere along Provincial Highway 14 toward the Tunyuan trailhead, it looks like we won’t be able to head up the mountain for tea hunting anytime soon.
