|
|
 HOME >> TEA PLUS >> Origins and Styles >> [origin] Dongding? Tungting?
[Login]
[Create Account]
Click to enlarge! |
[origin] Dongding or Tungting Oolong
凍頂烏龍探源
Dongding Oolong , or Tungting Oolong, and sometime Oolong is spelled as Wulong. It just differs in English spelling, all are Dongding Oolong 凍頂烏龍 )
Dongding Oolong is a unique Oolong Tea from Taiwan. It is the most popular tea style you may find in Taiwan, even more popular than Oriental Beauty (known as Baihao / Bai hao oolong or Formosa Imperial Oolong in western).
So you may want to know: what does "Dongding" mean? And why many of auraTea's Formosa Oolong Teas are described as "Dongding" style?
First of all, Taiwan is located at the eastern-south side of China. Although the two countries have different governments now, they used to be one country and deeply related until early 20th century. Except Aboriginal Taiwanese, most Taiwanese have ancestors from Mainland China. In ancient China, if someone wanted to work for the government, he needed to pass some exam called "Ke Jiu (科舉)", and be assigned to different central or local governments according to the exam results.
About 150 years ago in late Qing Dynasty (清朝), there was a young man named Lin Feng Chi (林鳳池) lived in Nantou, Taiwan (南投‧台灣). Lin Feng Chi wanted to take the Ke Jiu Exam in Fuchien-China (福建.中國), but was lacked of money. So his farmer neighbors raised this funds for him to travel to China and took the exam. Lin Feng Chi was not disappointing his neighbors , he passed the exam and got a public job in local government of Fuchien.
Lin Feng Chi never forgot his neighbors, and he brought some high quality tea plants from "Wu Yi Shan (武夷山), a famous mountain in Fuchien, back to his hometown in Nantou, Taiwan. He handed these young tea plants to the farmers who helped him. The farmers plants the tea on "Dong Ding Shan" (凍頂山), translate as "frozen peak mountain", where the weather is cool and humid.
The tea plants brought to Nantou was "Chinsin Oolong (Qingxin Oolong 青心烏龍)", grew into most famous Oolong tea in Taiwan, named "Dongding Oolong".
Dongding Oolong is so popular in Taiwan, and the name turned into a special style of Oolong other than Bai Hao Oolong and Baochong Oolong. If you travel to Taiwan, you'll heard a lot of "Dongding Oolong", which means "half balled shape, medium oxidized, medium roasted, grown in lower altitude (not high mountain tea) Oolong tea." And for "Dongding sytle tea leaf" means "half ball shaped tea leaf".
In auraTeas, we would like to bring the stories of teas to you, so our "Formosa Nostalgia Dongding" is from Dongding area. As Gaoshancha (High Mountain Tea) is very popular in Taiwan, Formosa Oolong Teas are getting apt to lighter oxidized green tea style, and skills of making Dongding Oolong are disappearing . Our tea master follows old fashioned way of making Dongding Oolong, which is extremely labor intensive and time consuming, helps us produce this Nostalgia Donging Oolong. The taste will definitely remind you of the good old times.
|
|