During the U.S.-China trade embargo, this tea-relationship strengthened, with Taiwan producing their own versions of teas like Lapsang Soucong and Keemum to substitute for the embargoed teas.
But today, American tea-drinkers don't seem aware of this relationship. Some older stores will still carry Formosa oolong, but there does not seem to be any special attention paid to it. Old FDA reports mention that it was more popular before World War II, typically in New England and especially in Boston, but not what changed.
So what happened?
The British tea-writer Denys Forrest seemed to suggest it was neglected in a failed attempt to become a contender in the black tea industry, maybe blindsided by the end of the trade embargo with China.
However, this also suggests that this was seen as a point of concern even before World War II. Did something happen that caused tastes to change in the U.S.? Or was this related to internal issues in Taiwan? Or something else?It was expected that as part of its modernisation programme Taiwan would step up its production of commercial Blacks, into which considerable effort had been put during the Japanese occupation before World War II. But this has not exactly happened. After a peak of some 13,605 tonnes of Black out of 20,120 tonnes exported in 1965 the proportion of Black to Green and other teas began to fluctuate at much lower levels, bottoming out at 386 tonnes out of 21,112 in 1976.
In the early 80s when the American tea-revival started, there was apparently still interest in good Formosa oolong, but I don't know if this was a hipster's attraction to rarity or if there was still a living American oolong culture then that died out afterwards.
Does anyone have any clues?