Mr. and Mrs. Chen tend a plot of land along the dizzying slopes of Zhushan. There, tea plants grow ye fang, with no human irrigation, fertilizer, or manicuring, instead relying entirely on the region’s natural resources for its success. The roots are burrowed deep in the soil, leaves are peppered with bug bites (a surprisingly positive quality for a tea tree, the plant sends additional sugars to the bitten areas to form calluses, increasing the sweetness of the harvested leaves), and soil health, sunlight, and climate are subject to canopy of larger trees that shade the grove and create natural mulch for the soil below.

It’s a wild place, and its tiny scale makes it harder to contract with tea pickers who work in groups, choosing larger, less remote jobs. The Chen’s catch as many pickers after their early harvesting shifts as they can, offering them additional work through the the late morning. As such, the harvest of their grove is slightly drawn out, and the leaves from the first days plucking are remarkably smaller than those of the final third day.

This tea is crafted from the leaves of the first and second day of harvest only, when the buds were at their most tender and sweet. Older crafting methods are becoming increasingly rare across Taiwan, but Mr. and Mrs. Chen have a particular penchant for the traditional. This oolong is the result of time-honored techniques, including cloth globe rolling that gently furls the leaves into small pearls. A medium-to-high charcoal roast, sets the flavors, giving way to an intoxicating series of flavors and aromatics.