Hong Yue - NEW Black tea from Taiwan!

In the 1920's, the Japanese introduced assam tea plants to Taiwan and for many decades, Taiwan was famous for high quality black tea, much of it consumed domestically or in Asia. 

5 year old Hong Yue black tea farm in Nantou.

Hong Yue, as translated from Chinese means "Red Jade" or Ruby. This special breed of tea bush is a cross of Burmese Wild Tea and Taiwan Wild Tea. Ruby Black as we call it or Hong Hue, is the premier black tea cultivar in Taiwan and renders a very unique character if processed with skill. Ruby Black has a distinctive aroma of Clove, Wintergreen, Camphor, Red Date, Raisin and Cinnamon. Ruby Black brews a very assertive, strong flavored cup with a deep red infusion color and is best for gong fu cha style brewing, using a lot of leaf and short infusion times to yield multiple cups from the same serving of leaf. 

One of our employees, Susana, tried it and had this to say, "There are teas that make me stop and smile and this is one of those!  I filled my guywan about two thirds of the way with leaves, used 19o degree water and brewed about 16 infusions! My infusions were only seconds long. The aroma of camphor and wintergreen is very prominent.  I highly recommend this truly special tea.  I'm really into organic farming practices, so it's great to see the images of the garden." 

Too small for organic certification, but we still cultivate Hong Yue without pesticides or chemicals.

Snails and lady bugs and spiders are found throughout the garden.

 

The yellow flowers seen are related to peanut. A little portion is planted in the tea garden and it spreads rapidly, creeping along the ground. They are planted in the tea farms because they are nitrogen fixing herbs and help to nurture young tea bushes. They hold moisture in the soil. Their root systems aerate the soil and create an environment where beneficial bacteria thrive thus providing nutrition and nitrogen to the tea plants in place of fertilizers. After some time, they are mulched into the soil when the tea trees are older and stronger. 

 

The nitrogen fixing herb's roost system is dense and protects the soil and holds moisture in the soil.

>>Purchase Hong Yue

Pussimbing Darjeeling Black Tea

We are very excited to offer a special Darjeeling - Second Flush Darjeeling Select - Pussimbing Estate black tea is one of our new favorites!

This limited batch was the best tea we tasted from Darjeeling this year. This was one of the hardest years to find good quality Darjeeling tea.  The region was hit by back-to-back drought quality years and high quality was way down.  We were so lucky to find this one from the Pussimbing Organic Fair Trade Tea Estate.

Pussimbing Tea Estate is situated East of Darjeeling, just below the famous “Tiger Hill” and is famous for its misty ambiance which helps to produce a completely  different, exclusive variety of teas.

The history behind the local name, Pussimbing, is that it is a combination of 2 words “Pasang”(name/community) and “Ung” (water source).

It is said that a monk named "Pasang" searching for water near Darjeeling found several sources of water in the valley on the hills where the present Pussimbing Tea Estate is situated. Due to abundance of water tea could be cultivated with ease and the British Planters expanded it into a fully commercial plantation sometime in the year 1911.

Today Pussimbing makes some of the finest Bio-Organic teas produced in the Darjeeling District and a distinctive feature of the teas produced here are that they have a natural fruity fragrance and taste.

This is one of the highest elevation gardens in the district and also produces some of the finest Darjeeling Green Teas.

Elevation: 1500 Mts. to 2200 metres above sea level

Total Crop: 80 MT annually

Total Gross Area: 400 Hectares

Total Planed Area: 201 Hectares

Jats of tea planted :Both Original Darjeeling seed (China ) & High Quality Assam Hybrid

Workers Employed: 531

Status: 100 % Certified Bio-Organic since 1997 (Fair Trade since 1995)

Fair Trade Details

A. Number of families covered -   650

B. Utilization of  Fair Trade premiums :

  1.)  Distribution of  Livestock (cows) amongst workers

  2.)  Distribution of  LPG cylinders and stoves to workers for cooking

  3.)  Repair and construction of Village roads

Learn more about our new Pussimbing Estate Darjeeling