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Tea workers from Fujian province, China, profoundly
affected the history of Taiwan’s modern day tea
industry. On three occasions beginning in the mid-17th
century, Fujianese residents were relocated or fled
across the straits of Taiwan to settle in this
mountainous island neighbor. The Fujianese took with
them their oolong tea-making skills as well as tea
bush cuttings to propagate new generations of tea bushes in their
relocated home. They succeeded in creating
spectacularly situated tea gardens in virtually all of
the high elevated locations in northern Taiwan and the
high-mountain regions of central Taiwan. Today,
researchers at several Taiwanese tea research
institutes have created new cultivars of bushes that
reflect the uniquely Taiwanese terroir. |
