Taiwan Sun Moon Lake Assam Black Tea

Sun Moon Lake Assam black tea is made in Nantou, Taiwan, from Assam tea plants brought to the island by Japanese growers in the early 1900s. The cup is full and malty, with sweet spice and ripe fruit. Brewed in a teapot at 90°C.

Origin & Story

Sun Moon Lake is the largest body of water in Taiwan, in Yuchi Township in Nantou County, at about 748 meters. It takes its name from its shape: the east side looks like a sun and the west side like a moon. The Thao people live around its shores.

Taiwan is best known for oolong, so its black tea surprises people. It began with Japanese tea specialists, who in the early 1900s brought Assam tea plants from India and found that the misty hills around the lake suited them; one account dates the first plantings to 1925. By the 1920s and 1930s the farms were making black tea for export, and the bushes that descend from those first plantings are still the base of the region's black tea.

Sun Moon Lake tea gardens sit at about 700 to 1,000 meters, in mild, foggy, humid mountain air. The industry declined later in the twentieth century and has revived in recent years, with new cultivars bred beside the old Assam bushes, Ruby 18 among them.

The tea from the old bushes, often called Taiwan Assam, is described as full-bodied, with malty sweetness, a smooth, rich flavor and a deep red infusion, and sellers add sweet spice and ripe fruit. Use water at about 90°C and 3 g of leaf for 240 ml, steep for two and a half to three and a half minutes in a teapot, and taste it plain.

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