Is anyone still making the classic American-export style Formosa Oolong?

Semi-oxidized tea
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mbanu
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Fri May 03, 2019 4:04 pm

I know that it is not a hip style at all anymore, with the TRES producing interesting new cultivars and the trend in oolongs in general being towards the lighter pouchong styles, but are there any growers around New Taipei who still make the American-export style oolong in good quality?
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pedant
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Fri May 03, 2019 4:15 pm

can you please describe it? i'm not familiar with it.
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mbanu
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Fri May 03, 2019 5:30 pm

Twatutia was considered the center of the American export trade during its peak, with most tea being from the area to the south and west of it, but not really very far inland. The Japanese government partnered with the exporters to ensure that the tea was not adulterated with oolong from mainland China, giving "Formosa oolong" a reputation distinct from oolong in general. This was tea grown from seed rather than cuttings. The summer flush was considered superior to the autumn and spring flushes for this style of tea, which was mid-oxidized. Care was taken to thorogouhly clean the tea, remove twigs and stalks. It went through a lengthy final firing for maximizing shelf life, but effort was made to avoid char and too much darkening to the liquor, as a dark roasty liquor was more of a British oolong preference.

I'm afraid I don't even really know if tea even grown in the New Taipei region anymore -- I know that it is quite urbanized now, so maybe looking for old tea bushes is a little pointless.

American teashops, especially those run by older generations in the regions where it was historically popular such as the Northeast, will often still offer a "Formosa oolong" for sale, but this is usually very stemmy and there is not much info on where they are getting it from; I was wondering if there were any better-quality examples out there.
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Bok
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Fri May 03, 2019 7:45 pm

Sounds like you are describing something you never tasted for yourself...

There is loads of tea grown in the greater Taipei area. Whatever that US style Formosa Oolong was, it was likely a low to medium quality tea. Probably resembling what is nowadays simply called Oolong in Taiwan, a roasted tea that you normally find in restaurants.
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Bok
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Fri May 03, 2019 10:01 pm

To add to it, I think today’s teas quality is better than what it used to be back then, so no point looking back ;)
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mbanu
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Fri May 03, 2019 11:19 pm

I have had stemmy legacy versions of the style and was looking for something closer to the original.

I think you may be mistaken about the quality -- American-style Formosa oolong built its reputation on being higher quality than what was coming out of mainland China at the time. The big distinction is that it was developed to suit the tastes of the American export market, which was the largest foreign market for oolong after the Brits mostly switched to drinking black tea. Other than small amounts of scented pouchongs, it was really the only main style being made in Taiwan at the time. Some of the practices were not sustainable, but there is no doubt they produced superior tea, such as growing in mountainous areas that had never grown tea before, and thus had none of the issues caused by erosion and exhausted soil that tended to crop up from long-term mountain tea farming in Taiwan.

Now of course I don't expect them to produce a tea using the same environmental conditions, because those can't really exist anymore, rather I am looking for tea grown in the traditional region for American-export style from bushes that aren't TRES cultivars and processed in the traditional style for American-export but of a higher quality than the stemmy varieties of unknown origin that I've found at the old-line American shops that still offer a Formosa oolong.

I'm certainly glad to hear that there is still tea being grown in the region of New Taipei in general; is any of it old bush tea?
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Fri May 03, 2019 11:59 pm

Old bush is a useful marketing tool... there are some old tea trees in Taiwan, but not many or widely available. Most of them are processed very lightly as to preserve the “wild” flavours. Too green for me.

@Tillerman is more knowledgeable in Taiwan’s tea history, but I seem to remember most of what used to be Formosa Oolong is close to Roasted Baozhong or Oriental beauty.

Around Taipei you find those two as well as tieguanyin.

Still kind of impossible to find a tea that no one makes anymore and also no one who knows what it was supposed to taste still alive...

Export tea back in the days was premium because it was rare and expensive, not necessarily because it was good tea. Just think of the transport over weeks and months on a humid ship... yuk
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Sat May 04, 2019 2:15 am

To me the description reminds me of a tea I have heard called pengfeng or ‘feng (though confusingly not dongfang meiren). My understanding is that ‘feng was used like a put down for this tea, like saying, “Oh, that’s just some ordinary tea”.

The ones I have had were from around Hualien County, made from daye, and usually from a summer harvest. The tea had mid to high oxidation, often delicately roasted, and no stems. The flavor was refined yet simple. All of the ones I tried had a subtle “twanginess” to them that was like a tamed assamica. I found the less roasted ones to be very nice. I’ll miss them when my stash is gone.
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Sat May 04, 2019 10:24 am

mbanu wrote:
Fri May 03, 2019 11:19 pm
I have had stemmy legacy versions of the style and was looking for something closer to the original.

I think you may be mistaken about the quality -- American-style Formosa oolong built its reputation on being higher quality than what was coming out of mainland China at the time. The big distinction is that it was developed to suit the tastes of the American export market, which was the largest foreign market for oolong after the Brits mostly switched to drinking black tea. Other than small amounts of scented pouchongs, it was really the only main style being made in Taiwan at the time. Some of the practices were not sustainable, but there is no doubt they produced superior tea, such as growing in mountainous areas that had never grown tea before, and thus had none of the issues caused by erosion and exhausted soil that tended to crop up from long-term mountain tea farming in Taiwan.

Now of course I don't expect them to produce a tea using the same environmental conditions, because those can't really exist anymore, rather I am looking for tea grown in the traditional region for American-export style from bushes that aren't TRES cultivars and processed in the traditional style for American-export but of a higher quality than the stemmy varieties of unknown origin that I've found at the old-line American shops that still offer a Formosa oolong.

I'm certainly glad to hear that there is still tea being grown in the region of New Taipei in general; is any of it old bush tea?
I have been following this thread with a lot of interest and suppose I might as well be "another country heard from." I think @Bok has things pretty much correct in his comments. @mbanu, you are looking for something that no longer exists.

There is a great deal of tea grown in New Taipei City, this jurisdiction is all of what used to be Taipei County and it goes from the Yilan border in the east to the Straight in the west. The whole of what is referred to as "Wenshan" is in New Taipei City. The village of Pinglin (in New Taipei City) is the center for the production of Wenshan Bao Zhong. The Taipei basin, where most of the old Formosa Oolong was grown, is in New Taipei City but now is largely home to Bao Zhong in the spring and winter and to Bai Hao (OB) in the early summer.

@Bok also is correct in noting that now, most of what is now called "Formosa Oolong" is restaurant grade tea that is produced in Miaoli and Hsinchu when the bushes are not producing Bai Hao.

The predominant cultivar grown in New Taipei City is qing xin wulong along with jin xuan (TTES 12) and cui yu (TTES #13). The origins of qing xin oolong are unknown: some suggest it is a "landrace" (unlikely in my view) others that it was brought to Dong Ding in 1855 by Lin Feng Chi (again, unlikely in my view). A researcher from TRES has stated that it was propagated from seed there in about 1918 (possible) and another is that the seed and or cuttings were brought to Taiwan in the mid 1860's by John Dodd (the same John Dodd who started the Taiwan export business and built the market for "Formosa Oolong" in America) and his comprador Li Chung Sheng. I discuss some of this in https://tillermantea.net/2018/11/qing-xin/

I have tried to find which cultivar was used for "Formosa Oolong" and I have not been able to do so definitively. William Ukers (in All About Tea 1935 vol 1, p 332)does list some of the local cultivars and states that over 40% of the acreage was the variety che-shima, which I believe is just his rendering of qing xin. He does state that che-shima is the variety that from which "the famous Oolong is manufactured." (By the way, most propagation of tea bushes was by asexual layering, not by growth from seed itself)

Both Ukers and James Davidson (The Island of Formosa Then and Now 1903) give fairly detailed descriptions of how oolong tea was processed in Taiwan during the late Qing and Japanese periods. No one produces tea in that fashion today.

Long winded made short - the type of Formosa Oolong that was made for the American market no longer exists on the island (the entire industry was, in any event remade in the mid 20th century) and we really have no idea what this tea tasted like.

( @Baisao - interesting observation on peng feng tea. Do you have any more information?)
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mbanu
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Sat May 04, 2019 12:50 pm

What wonderful information, thank you so much for your help!

I suppose I can understand why this would be so -- why make an American-export style of tea if there really is no American export market anymore? Unless maybe for historical curiosity... While the old export styles of green tea are still made in mainland China such as gunpowder and hyson, this is because these styles of tea are still regularly drunk day-to-day in certain parts of Africa, in far greater quantities than Americans drink Formosa oolongs.

Are there any dedicated oolong drinking countries today that do not grow oolong tea themselves?
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Baisao
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Sat May 04, 2019 10:12 pm

@Tillerman, this about as much information as I have other than the specific township (Ruisui) and the farmer. What was related was part of a conversation I had in 2016 with contemporaneous notes. What struck me at the time (and was much discussed!) is how label averse the Taiwanese are with teas. While pengfeng may refer to dongfang meiren, in this case it did not.

This has been a recurring theme for me over the years. I remember in 2007 my teacher confounded me by telling me that baozhong is not oolong, despite it being labeled as an oolong online, treated like an oolong in its manufacture, and that it is often made from qing shin (which is often just called "oolong"). As a brief aside, my teacher worked from the TRES station while getting her masters.

I think that this fluidity in codification is the cause of a lot of unnecessary online arguments. What one person learned on their visit to Taipei may be different from what a person learned in Tainan or Hualien. This becomes all the more apparent when people get into tea arguments where one is based out of, say, Singapore and the other out of Taiwan.
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Sun May 05, 2019 12:00 am

@Baisao label averse is a good description!

This was the cause of endless frustration for me when I was new to Taiwan and full of questions fuelled by Western sellers and blogs who often go the opposite way and have too many details that in the end may or may not matter, but are mostly useful for marketing.

I have come to avoid discussing definitions with Taiwanese tea people, it leads nowhere and friends are easily lost that way in these parts... what matters in the end - as always - is, what is in the cup and do I like it.
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Sun May 05, 2019 11:39 am

Bok wrote:
Sun May 05, 2019 12:00 am
Baisao label averse is a good description!

This was the cause of endless frustration for me when I was new to Taiwan and full of questions fuelled by Western sellers and blogs who often go the opposite way and have too many details that in the end may or may not matter, but are mostly useful for marketing.

I have come to avoid discussing definitions with Taiwanese tea people, it leads nowhere and friends are easily lost that way in these parts... what matters in the end - as always - is, what is in the cup and do I like it.
@Bok. Well said!
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