The "Forest Tea Garden" at an altitude of 2000 meters above sea level is the most satisfying for tasting tea on a high mountain tea table.

Driving to Lishan is an excruciating task. It takes endless twists and turns from the foot of Ilan Mountain. In a state of dizziness and discomfort for 3 hours, and even after arriving in the downtown area of Lishan, you have to drive to the Xinjiayang tribe again to arrive. And all this dizziness finally got a satisfying reward after taking a sip of Lishan alpine oolong tea.

The story of seeking roots in the original countryside of the high mountains

Following the Taijiajia line up the hill and turning into the path to the Xinjiayang tribe, the scenery on both sides turned into a green tea garden scenery, like laying a beautiful green carpet for the high mountain, and a girl with a lovely smile appeared on the steep slope of the tea garden. Chen Wanping, the owner of Gumai Tea Garden, seems to have landed with us in the breeze of the hillside.

Because her father died and was surprised that she would lose her connection with her hometown if she did not return home, Wan Ping left the popular science and technology industry and returned to her hometown, known as far away, to take over her father's tea garden. It didn't go well at first. I didn't know anything about mountains, latitudes, or tea planting, or even because I was too far away from my husband and children. "I wanted to escape in the first month after I came back!" "Wan Ping recalls the past with such a smile.

Tea and children guarded by the alpine forest

"We Atayal children don't give up easily! "Let her dry her tears from secretly crying in the tea garden, and began to take classes actively, work hard to check materials, and visit various alpine tea gardens. Gradually, she found that his father left him and his younger brother extremely precious natural assets." the tea garden is located directly below the black forest, where the pure water filtered into the nectar that nourishes the tea, and the soil nourishes it. As long as the bottom of the tea tree is trimmed and dried, the wind blowing up from the steep valley has become the most ventilated environment for the tea tree. of course, being at a high altitude of 2200 meters, a large temperature difference and more clouds are the key to good tea for alpine oolong tea. In this way, Wanping revived the name of the first aboriginal Gumai tea garden in Lishan, followed her efforts to break into the Russian tea market, and even into the vast market in Europe where only black tea was used.

On this day in early spring, Wanping laid out a tea table in the alpine tea garden. Together with the tea trees, we blew the breeze down the mountain and tasted the tea brewed from the alpine spring. The first cup of pure alpine oolong and the second cup of Chinese wolfberry black tea she stacked. Listening to her tell the story of the beautiful tea village that came from the forest and breathed with nature, five feelings were deeply moved.

Learn to be a tribal warrior of Atayal

When we left the tea garden, we were still obsessed with tribal customs, so we took part in a trip carefully designed by the members of the Jiayang Community Development Association, following the Atayal culture that boys need to learn to hunt and girls need to know how to weave cloth. The tribal mountains and forests carry out the practice of archery of warriors, drawing full bows and trying to shoot arrows toward the target, and then there is the experience of setting traps to experience the hunters' skills in the mountains and forests through interpretation and field drills.

In addition, there is a manual weaving course, which weaves its own ancestral eyes through a thread and a hole explained by the mother of the community. After all the experience, the people finally put up a grain sticker symbolizing adulthood, which also means that we have experienced through the bar mitzvah.