Tea Arts 茶藝

One Hundred Years of Tea Walking along the Chinese arcades infused with the smoky fragrance of jasmine tea, it was as if I were treading a carpet of wondrous and beautiful things. I recall how we would make castles out of meter-square tea crates as building blocks, Hiding inside from the “enemy” beyond the walls in our play war.” Taipei-ologist Chuang Yung-ming, “Nostalgia for the Lanes of Taipei” (The photos from《引領台北走向世界舞台的茶文化特刊》) The words above refer to Kuiteh Street, an important trade area due to its proximity to the port, with its old, high-ceilinged arcades built against the perpetual flooding of the Tanshui River. The air was always full of the fragrance of jasmine, as this was the early 20th century, when jasmine tea and paochung tea were being exported. Prior to this, the English businessman John Dodd had started, in 1869, to ship Formosa Oolong tea to New York, the first chapter in the hundred-year history of Taiwanese tea exports that saw, in its most prosperous period, te...