Thursday, June 05, 2008
Posted by 醉茶生 at 12:36 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Categories: Tea Wulong

Wenshan baozhong (文山包種) is a Taiwanese oolong, and was developed more than 150 years ago by Wang Yicheng (王義程) in imitation of the famous teas of Mount Wuyi (武夷巖) in China. The name comes from a mountain in Taiwan, Mount Wen (文山), and in modern times, encompasses a mountainous area to the South and East of Taipei city that is easily accessible as day trips.
Towns associated with Wenshan baozhong include Xindian (新店), Pinglin (坪林), Shenkeng (深坑), Shiding (石碇), Pingxi (平溪) and Xizhi (汐止).

In common with the Wuyi teas, Wenshan baozong is traditionally a heavily fermented oolong with loosely rolled leaves. I have had a chance to try this year’s batch of Wenshan baozhong from Ye Tang (冶堂) in Taipei. The tea follows the contemporary Taiwanese move towards lightly fermented versions of traditionally heavily fermented oolongs.

The taste is surprisingly fresh. It is green almost like a gaoshan (高山), with a milky flavour like Jinxuan (金萱). The leaves are oily green and whole, but thin and fragile. Unfortunately, the fragrance is weak and the leaves struggle to survive more than two or three infusions. I am sure the reason is the inclement weather that seems to have affected all the tea plantations in Taiwan this spring.\

Curled dried leaves of Wenshan baozhong (L) compared
to the opened wet leaves (R)

Some information garnered from Easytravel webpage: http://www.easytravel.com.tw/action/tea/page2.htm

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