2025 Vol 06 Taitung Times

The East Rift Valley of Taitung—framed by the Central and Coastal Mountain Ranges—is one of Taiwan’s younger tea regions. Large-scale cultivation began in the 1960s, centered in Luye, Beinan, and Yanping, where Assam large-leaf black tea was grown mainly for export. The valley’s abundant sunlight, dry winters, mild temperatures, and faster plant growth compared with western Taiwan gave Taitung a natural advantage for early spring and late winter harvests.

Most tea gardens sit on and around the Luye Highland at 200–350 meters, a gently sloping river-terrace landscape also known for the Taiwan International Hot Air Balloon Festival. Three large rivers for irrigation, steady breezes, long sunlight hours, cool nights, and clear winter skies create the pronounced day–night temperature variation that enriches tea flavors.

In the 1980s, Taiwan’s black-tea industry declined under competition from China, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka. Taitung growers shifted to the domestic market, planting small-leaf oolong varieties suited for lightly oxidized, aromatic teas. Yet by the 1990s, consumer preference swung sharply toward high-mountain oolongs, and Taitung’s mid-elevation teas struggled to compete. Once a thriving industry, they stood on the brink of extinction.

In 2008, the Tea and Beverage Research Station worked with farmers and tea masters to create a new style designed specifically for Taitung’s environment: extended sun-withering, deep roasting characteristic of oolong tea crafting and the layered rolling of black tea. This method harnesses the region’s climactic strengths. Instead of competing with high-mountain delicacies, Taitung developed a tea defined by depth, warmth, and resilience.

The result was Taitung Red Oolong (紅烏龍), a hybrid style combining the aromatic lift of oolong with the deeper fermentation of black tea, almost 80% the oxidation. More than a technical innovation, Red Oolong embodies the resilience of Taitungers and represents a turning point: a tea that transforms the plateau’s natural conditions into flavor—ripe fruit sweetness, roasted aroma, and a smooth, full body—while restoring pride and viability to Taitung’s tea fields.  

Taitung Red Oolong’s character is inseparable from its living terroir. The plateau’s three rivers; the deep, slightly acidic, clay-rich soils; and the steady breezes—support balanced enzymatic oxidation during the fermentation stage, contributing to the region’s clean, sweet, fruity and low-astringency teas.

In some naturally pest-resistant varieties of teaplant, the leafhopper nibbling triggers natural plant defenses, subtly enriching honeyed and floral aromas. Combined with the highland’s temperature swings and abundant sunlight, these factors give Red Oolong its complexity and differentiate it from other oolongs. Here, soil, water, air, and ecosystem form the living terroir celebrated by tea artisans and embraced in sustainable, low-input farming practices.

Taitung Red Oolong is the world’s youngest tea—only 17 years since its creation—yet it already offers a rich but gentle flavor that people of all ages and nationalities can enjoy. Its story reflects both the challenges faced by Taitung’s tea industry and the perseverance and innovation of local farmers and merchants. These efforts have allowed this remarkably young tea to gain swift recognition, setting the stage for new ways of drinking, branding, and sharing Taitung tea with the world.

Red Oolong has helped reshape the way tea is enjoyed. Traditionally brewed in small teapots or gaiwan, oolong emphasizes subtlety and multiple steepings. Red Oolong, with its smooth body and deep flavor, appeals to a broader range of drinkers. It is ideal for cold brewing, a trend embraced by younger consumers seeking refreshment in Taiwan’s increasingly hot climate.

Cold brewing draws out the tea’s natural sweetness without bitterness, transforming tea drinking into a modern, all-day habit, with bottled cold brews found in shops and stands across Taitung. Yun Fun Premium Brew—an 80% fermented Red Oolong cold brew sometimes stored in wine bottles—demonstrates the tea’s versatility and added-value potential. The tea’s stability and black-tea-like amber hue make it accessible to foreign drinkers and an excellent base for beverages, desserts, and fragrance collaborations. At this year’s Taiwan International Tea Festival, the Taitung Red Oolong Pavilion showcased biscuits, popcorn, fine-dining desserts, jelly, and ice cream featuring the tea as the core flavor.

Taitung’s tea has also stepped onto the global stage. Continuing the legacy of John Dodd, the British merchant who introduced “Formosa Oolong” to the world in the 19th century, a delegation led by County Magistrate April Yao presented Red Oolong at Venice’s Palazzo Venart, pairing Venetian glassware with tea and a Red Oolong Aiyu Jelly dessert. A Red Oolong-based ice cream—blended with Sicilian citrus and Changhua honey by artisan Sylvia Chao (趙韻嵐)—won top honors at the Sherbeth International Festival of Artisan Ice Cream in Sicily this November. In October, the county government also launched a multilingual international website together with ten major Red Oolong brands to introduce Taitung tea to global audiences.

In this way, Taitung’s farmers are sending a distinctly local tea into global circulation—this time under their own name, story, and identity. Even as Red Oolong travels abroad, its spirit remains anchored in Taitung itself, where sipping Red Oolong in Luye is becoming as iconic to Taitung as matcha is to Kyoto.

Red Oolong’s vivid amber color, reminiscent of sunsets over the East Rift Valley, has become a visual hallmark of Taitung’s tea culture. The region emphasizes organic cultivation and pesticide-free farming, with many growers certified organic, aligning with Taitung’s broader ecological identity and slow economy ethos, where sustainability, small-scale production, and quality of life come before speed and volume.

Tea tourism has grown alongside this revival. Through ecotourism platform Imagine Taitung (饗嚮台東), visitors can tour tea gardens, join seasonal picking, try roasting, learn brewing techniques, and enjoy guided tastings. Luye teashops and tea-themed guesthouses offer hands-on experiences, blending accommodation, agricultural tourism and cultural immersion to emphasize slow living—the unhurried rhythm of Taitung.  

In 2020, farmers founded the Red Oolong Tea Cooperative to ensure quality and zero pesticides, while supporting product creation and branding at home and abroad. With its Luye sika deer with tea antlers logo, the Cooperative represents a range of tea derivatives, including Red Oolong sparkling water and a craft beer created with Zhangmen Brewing Company, which adds tea leaves at the cold end to reduce bitterness while retaining the reddish color. Another high-value local product is Red Oolong Koso Vinegar, naturally fermented in earthenware jars through a four-stage process with yeast, acetic, and lactic bacteria, delivering a tangy, tea-infused flavor perfect on its own or mixed with sparkling water.  

Red Oolong is more than a beverage—it is a form of place-based identity, connecting environmental sustainability with economic vitality, and ancient patience with contemporary innovation. With some slow fermentation and smart branding, Taitungers have forged a unique milieu of taste to preserve and position their tea industry solidly into the future.  

As global tastes turn toward fermented health beverages, local artisans are also embracing kombucha—a naturally fermented tea drink combining tea, sugar, and a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY) with selected flavors. Through fermentation, the SCOBY converts sugars into organic acids, vitamins, and natural carbonation, creating a tangy, lightly effervescent drink rich in probiotics.

Taitung’s clean air, local teas, and artisanal spirit make it an ideal home for kombucha. The Lian Family Tea House, teamed up with the Power of Brew (原力釀) to begin fermenting their Organic Red Oolong Kombucha, merging traditional tea craft with new probiotic trends. Their kombucha retains the tea’s honeyed aroma while developing the bright acidity and fizz that modern consumers crave. It’s both a homage to the past and a step into the future—a healthy, complex, minimum alcohol alternative to traditional fermented drinks, now offered by many restaurants and bars across the county.

In Chishang, Kevin Brazier has opened Magic Monkey Kombucha (康普茶孫悟空), a vibrant vegan café and kombucha brewery in the heart of town. His business is quickly becoming a community hub, serving creative plant-based dishes alongside small-batch kombucha made with local teas and fruits. Brazier’s venture captures the experimental, collaborative energy of Taitung’s evolving slow-food culture, proving that even international newcomers can find common cause in the region’s values of sustainability, craft, and care for the land.

Across the county, kombucha workshops and farmers’ market stalls offer residents and travelers alike a chance to learn about fermentation, SCOBY care, and the balance of yeasts and bacteria that make each batch unique. Together, these initiatives have turned kombucha into both a cultural and ecological experiment, where microbes, artisans, and nature coexist in creative harmony.

From the transformation to Red Oolong and the rise of locally flavored kombuchas, Taitung’s story is one of preservation through adaptation. Each wave of change—whether environmental, cultural, or economic—has been met with experimentation, resilience, and a respect for nature’s rhythms.

Red Oolong embodies this spirit, preserving the tea industry against the trials of globalization, shifting production and consumption patterns, climate change and environmental limitations, while deepening its flavor and character. Kombucha extends that same philosophy, transforming living cultures of yeast and bacteria into symbols of renewal and balance. Both remind us that preservation is not just about keeping the past alive, but about brewing a future that can endure.

In every cup of Red Oolong or sparkling kombucha from Taitung—there’s the story of resilience, creativity, and harmony between people, microbes, and the land itself, of Taitungers adapting to survive and thrive in ever-changing conditions.