When it comes to web traffic, keywords are everything. And the undisputed king of search traffic in the Taiwan tea world is none other than “Dayuling tea.” Today, we’re riding the Dayuling wave again, this time looking at the 105K tea plantation, also known as the Truffle Tea Garden.
As we mentioned last year, even though the Dayuling 105K plantation was cleared out, the tea bushes didn’t completely die, and people still go there to harvest leaves every year. Later on, our store manager got word that without irrigation, fertilization, or pesticides, these Dayuling tea plants have practically turned into 100% “feral tea.” Curious about the quality, the manager managed to get a small sample to try. As expected, it was pretty much “flavorless.”
You might think feral tea sounds appealing, but our manager isn’t sold on unmanaged tea farming. Without fertilizer, the plants are practically starving—how could the tea possibly taste good? We can’t speak for other types of tea, but we’ve genuinely never come across a truly delicious feral Taiwanese high mountain oolong. Unless you’re drinking it strictly for health reasons or the poetic vibe, our manager thinks there are much better options out there.
Then, when our manager passed through Dayuling last month and swung by the 105K plantation again, they found that the tea bushes had been stumped (hard-pruned) once more. True to their 50-plus years of age, these plants are remarkably resilient, bouncing right back from that kind of heavy cutting. We really hope these tea bushes live a long, healthy life; after all, they hold real significance in the history of Taiwanese tea, and it would be a shame for them to simply disappear. It suddenly makes you wonder: would it be illegal to dig up a 105K tea plant and take it home to grow in the yard?
