A few days ago, the store manager mentioned that “Lishan Sinjiayang winter tea is in trouble.” We initially thought the Lingfu Bridge repairs would be finished in time, but continuous rockfalls over the past couple of days led the public works office to close the area for two weeks of slope maintenance. Now, the Sinjiayang winter tea is in serious trouble.
With the road blocked, tea farmers have had to find alternative ways to transport freshly picked tea leaves to the tea factory. There are currently two routes. The first is by water: right below Sinjiayang is the Te师 Reservoir (as seen in the photos, the body of water below), taking a bamboo raft to bypass the Lingfu Bridge section. The second route is via Shengli Road to Cuiluan Industrial Road.
Both routes have their pros and cons. The water route is suitable for producers whose tea factories are located in Songmao and downtown Lishan. Its advantage is reasonable speed (taking about 50 minutes to deliver), while the downside is the higher labor and transportation costs. The Cuiluan Industrial Road route is better suited for producers with factories in HuaGung; the advantage is that it’s an overland route requiring no transfers, but the drawback is the long, 1.5-hour journey. Combined with harvesting work in the tea gardens, it could take up to 2 hours to deliver, creating a risk of the fresh leaves bruising and heating up.
Using boats to transport tea is wonderfully creative—a first in the history of Lishan tea cultivation. Because there aren’t many bamboo rafts, the store manager isn’t sure if capacity will meet the needs of all the Sinjiayang tea leaves. As for the Cuiluan Industrial Road route, the manager has some concerns. Having only driven the section from HuaGung District 5 to the 18K marker on the Cuiluan North Line, the road conditions are terrible—and word is that past the 18K marker, it’s even worse. The trip normally takes about an hour, but encountering oncoming traffic could cause major delays.
We also heard that some producers plan to use drones, which can carry 30 kg at a time and move extremely fast. Now that’s impressive. The manager will head up to Lishan in a couple of days to see if we can catch a glimpse of the drone tea-delivery in action.
Note: Word has it that some tea leaves couldn’t find a bamboo raft, and those batches are truly toast.
