Lugu Township

This is perhaps the best-known of Nantou’s tea regions. Tea was first cultivated here in 1855, using bushes brought from the Wuyi Mountains in China’s Fujian Province. The ancestors of most Han Chinese in Taiwan emigrated from Fujian, directly across the Taiwan Strait during the Chinese imperial era; Fujian is a major tea-production region. In fact, the word “tea” is from Western traders’ attempts at the southern Fujianese for tea, pronounced “teh.”

Dalunshan Tea Plantations

This area is reached most easily via County Route 151, which starts in the flatlands town of Zhushan and takes you up past the tea-growing town of Lugu. Above Lugu, turn onto County Route 55, then a few hundred meters later (just past a small village), head steeply up-mountain on the winding plantation-access road, Yangwan Lane.

The tea plantations are spread out atop Dalunshan, or Dalun Mountain, from 1,250~1,500m above sea level. This is the biggest Oolong tea area in Lugu Township, measuring about 100 acres. You’ll also see thick swathes of gingko forest, planted in afforestation efforts to protect the steep slopes from erosion. The combination of tea-bush tiers of green, blue skies, intense golden-yellows of the gingko trees (in autumn), and the frequent fog and mist make for tremendous photos and videos.

Boardwalk paths and dirt paths take you through the tea-bush rows. At the highest point is a rest pavilion and, just below, a viewing deck. From these, tremendous views north are enjoyed, all the way to the long east-west valley through which the famed Jiji Line tourist trains run. Note that there is a trio of simple eateries in the plantation area, selling fresh range chicken and mountain vegetables.

Once a bamboo-cultivation center, local farmers began switching to tea starting in 1987, in the face of dwindling sales (bamboo wood was to that point widely used in scaffolding, furniture, etc.). Disease also hit the township’s bamboo in 1990.

Remote And Rewarding

Getting to Lugu's high-elevation tea plantations means driving on long and winding mountain roads. Once you are there, you will be rewarded with spectacular vistas

Sun-Link-Sea Forest and Nature Resort

Reach this secluded forest resort area by taking County Route 151 to the popular Xitou Nature Education Area, then switching to the Shanlinxi Highway (County Route 95) just before the road’s terminus. An alternative is to continue past Dalunshan on Yangwan Lane, which connects with the Shanlinxi Highway.

Sun-Link-Sea is in a deep and narrow valley spread over an elevation of 1,600~1,880m. This is a privately operated getaway idyll (entry fee) where ecotourism is the clarion call. People come for three things – the abundant wildlife, the waterfalls, and the flowers. Anyone with moderate fitness can easily tackle all the spread-out sights walking, but a shuttlebus service is also available (fee).

At the valley’s upper end is Songlong Rock Waterfall, which hurtles over a wide semi-circular cliff, the waters gathering in a deep green-hue lagoon. A paved pathway leads behind the waterfall “into” the cliff’s base – a massive hollow 30m high and 30m deep – created by soft-sandstone erosion.

Toward the valley’s middle is the expansive Flower Center, laid out like a chateau’s gardens – showcase of a flower and medicinal-herb botanical research and teaching center. The focus is on temperature-climate floral gems. Among the tourist-favorite residents are tulips, peonies, rhododendrons, Taiwan azaleas, hydrangeas, and golden bell flowers.

Lower in the valley is Shijing Ji, literally “Stone-Well Eddy,” a collection of ten stream-bed potholes, the deepest of which is 5.5m; the sightly 88 Suspension Bridge, which connects the easy-grade paved pathways that run along the valley-sculpting waterway; and the soaring 116m-high Qinglong Waterfall, this cataract and its gorge forming a superb “headward erosion” classroom.

Yen’s Tea Garden

The retail operation of Yen’s Tea Garden is right on County Route 151 as it runs through the town of Lugu. The Yen family’s farm is below the town, just off County Route 139. This family operation is today run by the third generation, a young couple who lived in the nearby city of Taichung for a time and decided to return and take over the reins in 2012 when the generation above began to experience health issues. Both are trained designers, a talent put to good use in the packaging, signage, and other elements of the business.

At the retail operation you’ll find a wide range of products, including Oolong loose leaf and tea bags, camellia oils, tea-infused perfumes, tea-based snacks, and traditional “Grandma”-style pillows with a filling of compressed tea stems. Cold-pressed oil extraction is used for the camellia seeds. Online shopping is also available on the sophisticated website the tea cultivator/designer team has set up, and shipping is also available.

Yen’s also offers a range of popular experience activities. Participants gather at the retail center, and are then led in their vehicles to the family farm. For the guided Tea-Picking Experience, you don a traditional Taiwan conical farmer’s hat made with bamboo leaf and, carrying a cute tea-picker basket, head into the close-knit rows of tea to learn how to pick tea. At the end you sit down to fresh-brewed tea at a rustic table-and-chair set in the shade of the family’s adjacent fruit orchard to enjoy fresh-brewed Yen’s-leaf tea and snacks. The activity lasts an hour or so and costs NT$350 per person.

During the session you’ll learn of much beyond the details of how to recognize ready-to-pluck leaf and how to properly pluck without harming the bush. For example, how the Yen’s farm was affected by the aforementioned bamboo blight in 1990, causing a decision to concentrate on tea. How Yen’s tea bushes are thigh-high to enable easy manual plucking, whereas in nearby Songboling (to be visited later) they are low to the ground, with wider spaces between rows, to enable machine plucking; in the Yen family’s opinion, hand-plucking produces higher-quality leaf.

You’ll also learn how the name “Lugu” means “deer valley,” and how Taiwan’s western plains and foothills once teemed with deer, the herds eliminated during the Chinese imperial period for sale of their skins overseas, primarily to Japan (where they were put to such uses as leggings and quiver covers for samurai). How island tea consumption slid from the 1960s through 1980s, but then picked up dramatically after Taiwan’s population began celebrating the unique local homegrown culture and plantation areas were developed as tourist destinations. Today, most production is consumed in-country.

Among Yen’s other experience activities are DIY making of an afore-described traditional-style “Grandma” tea-scented pillow; a factory tour and DIY tea processing; forest tea tasting and tea-snack eating; and combo sessions.

The pillow-making activity lasts 1.5 hours and costs NT$650 per pillow. Participants are given one attractive Yen’s-designed box containing all necessary materials (compressed tea-stem bag, bright-design pillow-cover fabric, etc.). These boxes can also be purchased separately for at-home DIY use. The experience activity can either take place at the retail center or, for even more fun, at the farm in the shady fruit orchard. During the session your guide provides instructions and assistance and, yes, regales you with interesting Taiwan tea-culture nuggets of knowledge.

YEN'S TEA GARDEN ( 山中茶學 ) (04) 9275-0996

No. 336, Zhongzheng 1st Rd., Zhangya Village, Lugu Township, Nantou County ( 南投縣鹿谷鄉彰雅村中正一路 336 號 ) donglongtea.com (Chinese) www.facebook.com/donglongtea