Tea carried across the strait

A familiar local account credits Lin Fengchi, a scholar from Lugu, with bringing tea to Dong Ding. On a visit to Fujian in 1855 he is said to have received thirty-six plants, brought them back across the strait and planted twelve of them on the mountain. The story is repeated in local histories and on the signs along the road, and it fits the wider pattern of Taiwanese tea: cuttings and techniques carried from Fujian, then adapted to new ground. Lugu Township now calls itself the home of Dong Ding oolong, and the mountain gives its name to the style rather than to a single garden.

The tea gardens run from about 600 to 1,200 metres on the slopes above Lugu. Cool nights and mist slow the growth of the leaf, and the bushes are picked in spring and winter. What distinguishes Dong Ding from greener oolongs is the roast: the leaf is withered, rolled tightly, then dried slowly over charcoal, sometimes in several rounds with rests between them. The result is a dark, curled leaf and a liquor that tastes of nuts, toast and stone fruit rather than flowers. Roasting is a skill passed between families, and the smell of it hangs over the workshops in the weeks after a harvest.

Lugu holds an oolong competition each year, and the results move prices across the island. Growers submit samples, judges taste them blind, and the winners are ranked and sold with the township's seal. The competition has been held since the 1970s, when the tea industry was looking for a way to distinguish Taiwanese oolong from cheaper imports. Visitors can walk the gardens, watch a roast, and sit in a tasting room where the same leaves are infused several times to show how it changes. The road up from Lugu is narrow and steep, and the best time to come is a clear morning before the afternoon mist.