Taiwan Ginseng (Lan Gui Ren) Oolong Tea

This ginseng oolong is made of 97% traditional oolong tea with 3% American ginseng, a type of panax that promotes blood circulation and helps with the immune system. This tea has both the aroma of oolong and the strong, sweet taste of fresh ginseng. During manufacturing, the ginseng is mixed wit the tea during the roasting process; after 4-6 hours under temperatures of around 200℃, the ginseng fragrance is fully combined with the tea’s natural aroma.

Afterwards, the presence of the ginseng is much more noticeable, as its taste can linger in your mouth for quite a while after swallowing - and drinking plain water afterwards might give you an unmistakably sweet taste. Separated from other types of oolong tea, ginseng oolong has a smoother, powdery appearance. To brew the tea leaves entirely, a higher grade of ginseng oolong requires more steeps and hotter water.

	Cup Method		Chinese Gongfu Method
	Teacup: 12oz / 355ml		Gaiwan: 3.8oz / 110ml
	212℉ / 100℃		212℉ / 100℃
	3 Teaspoons / 5g Tea		7g Tea
	Brewing time: 3- 5 mins		7 steeps: rinse, 15s, 20s, 25s, 30s, 45s, 60s, 80s

Yong Feng Organic Tea Garden is in Nantou County, Taiwan. The fertile red soil and foggy weather make it an excellent place to grow high-mountain tea. The owner of the garden, Mr. Xie, implements only organic planting and growing methods to ensure that his tea is sweet, mellow, and above all healthy: pesticides and fertilizers are not allowed here, in order to create and maintain a non-polluted, balanced ecological environment. Gentle care and management of the trees on this ecological land bring natural products to tea lovers all over the world.

Mr. Lin has been a professional tea farmer for over forty years. Born to a traditional tea family, he has been deeply ingrained in the culture since childhood, and ended up building his own tea factory. As his factory gradually grows, he continually attempts to seek a common development between the tea enterprise and the tea farmers themselves.

Mr. Lin believes that the hardest factor to overcome is the weather: if leaves suffer from bad weather, then the result will be a reduced yield with lowered quality. During cold weather the leaves are covered with straw in order to prevent them from frosting; this is only one thing that Mr. Lin has learned throughout his years of experience.

His first priority is to strictly control his products’ quality and ensure its reputation. Mr. Lin, together with his tea factory, will continue to provide high-quality tea and regularly increase the number of factories that do so.

This tea was grown along Dongding Mountain in Lugu Township, Nantou County, Taiwan, with an average temperature of 22℃ and average yearly precipitation of around 2200 mm. The mountain experiences abundant rainfall and a commonly misty environment, and the rich organic material in the soil result in its prime conditions for growing tea trees. Nantou has about 8000 hectares of tea gardens in total, which comes to about 46% of the total acreage throughout all of Taiwan. Nantou is the main area of tea production in Taiwan, as well as the birthplace of high-mountain oolong tea. Along the mountains, the tea growing elevations are spread between 200 and 2500 meters. Important tea gardens here are mainly in the Mingjian, Lugu, Ren’ai, Xiny, and Yuchi Townships, and also in Zhushan Town.

This ginseng oolong tea is made from leaves of the Camellia sinensis varietal Si Ji Chun, a developed cultivar from Taiwan with main distribution areas in Alishan, Zhushan, and Nantou. It is a small-leaf tea bush with thick branches, buds, and leaves. The leaves take on a spindle shape with a sharp tip, and are thick and glossy. This particular species can be harvested across all four seasons, though it is especially good in spring. With its clear, strong aroma, teas made from Si Ji Chun quickly became popular.

Oolong tea was first developed in the early 1700s in Fujian, China. As a cross between non-fermented green teas and fully-fermented black teas, it combines the best of both in a single tea - and as a result quickly became popular all throughout eastern China and Taiwan. Nowadays, Anxi is the largest producing area of oolong tea, with its representative type of tia guan yin oolong tea.
In the year 1855, a man named Linfengchi took a few oolong tea trees with him from the Wuyi Mountains in China and traveled to Dong Ding, in Lugu, Taiwan. Once there he replanted the tea trees, beginning the history of Dong Ding Oolong, one of Taiwan’s most famous teas. During 1858, a British company at that time called Jardine Matheson & Co. brought semi-finished oolong tea from Taiwan and spread it around the world.