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BEHIND THE SCENES: ALISHAN

TEA CRAFT & ORIGIN

Commissioned to capture the artistry, heritage, and untold narratives steeped in every leaf, award-winning filmmaker and journalist Fraser Morton, alongside wildlife photographer Eszter Papp, traces the footsteps of our tea connoisseurs from one storied terroir to the next — through a lens attuned to tradition, craft, and place.

We started out early, crawling through Taipei’s morning traffic, headlights cutting through misted glass, the city slowly peeling away behind us. The road to Alishan begins with the hum of motorbikes and high-rise density, but after a couple of hours, it gives way to a different rhythm. Highways become hillside switchbacks. Skyscrapers turn to pine trees. And then you’re suddenly in the clouds.

You drive and drive, winding higher until the air gets thin and the sky gets close. Then you see it — that dreamlike phenomenon locals call the Sea of Clouds. A blanket of white rolls across the mountain shoulders like frothy milk spilling into a teacup. For a tea drinker, it’s a sign you’ve arrived in sacred territory.

Alishan is one of Taiwan’s most storied tea-growing regions, tucked in the central mountain range of Chiayi County. This place is legendary for one thing: Oolong Blue Tea — a tea so rich in history, climate, and craft that it’s woven into the fabric of the island’s tea identity.

I’m here on assignment with TWG Tea, tasked with documenting the journey behind one of their most coveted teas: Alishan Imperial Oolong.

A LIVING LANDSCAPE

Taiwan, or Ilha Formosa as the Portuguese once called it, is more than just a beautiful island. It’s a living museum of microclimates, each one shaping the taste and character of its tea. Here, tea isn’t just an agricultural product — it’s generational, cultural and deeply personal.

That’s especially true in Alishan. The name itself, “Mountain of the Ali,” comes from the indigenous Tsou tribe who once inhabited these ranges. The tea grown here is high-mountain Oolong — cultivated above 1,200 metres — and it’s about as close to perfection as you can grow.

The elevation, the mist, and the slow growth of the leaves all converge to create something extraordinary. But it doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because of people.

THE TEA MASTER

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We met our tea master just after dawn, the sky still tinged with the pinkish hue of morning light. She’s a quiet presence, but her hands do most of the talking — hands that have spent decades coaxing flavour from leaves. After all, her family has been growing and crafting Oolong tea here for generations.
–

We’ve travelled here to document the spring harvest — the most prized pluck of the year. It’s the first flush, when the leaves are young, tender, and full of potential. The tea pickers — mostly women — move through the rows with elegant precision, baskets strapped to their backs, fingers plucking the youngest shoots with the grace of dancers.

There’s laughter in the fields. You can hear it echo down the slopes. For a moment, it feels less like work and more like ritual — a performance passed down through time.

THE DANCE OF OXIDATION

Later, we followed the leaves into the processing rooms — wooden sheds where steam rises and machines clank in rhythm. This is where the magic happens.

Oolong is a hybrid tea, suspended in the liminal space between green and black. Its identity shaped through oxidation — the chemical reaction that begins when a leaf is exposed to air. The leaves are tumbled gently in bamboo drums, then left to rest, then tumbled again.

It’s a careful choreography. Oxidise too much, and the tea tips into black. Too little, and it drinks like green. But get it right — like this tea master does — and you get complexity. You get layers, giving it its signature aroma and character. You get Alishan.

Fixing. Rolling. Roasting. Drying. Each step is a chapter in the tea’s story. The final result is a twisted, dark-green leaf that unfurls like a flower in hot water — releasing floral notes, hints of cream, and a smooth, lingering sweetness.

A TASTE OF TAIWAN

We ended the day with a tasting ceremony. No distractions. Just the tea, the mountains, and silence.

The water was heated to exactly 95°C (203°F). The leaves steeped. The golden liquor poured. Then the first sip — a swirl of mountain air, morning mist, and history in a cup. It’s hard to describe Alishan Oolong without slipping into poetry. But really, that’s what it is — liquid poetry.

This tea doesn’t just taste good. It feels like something. It carries with it the echoes of its origin — the altitude, the cloud cover, the ancient soil, the hands that made it.

Perhaps that is the essence of tea at its finest — a connection to land, to craft, and to one another. Because this isn’t just about tea, it’s about the transmission of knowledge. About keeping something alive that the world needs more of: patience and reverence for craft.

As we drove back down the mountain, winding below the clouds, I thought about the generations of tea farmers past and present and the many more yet to come — a story reaching through time. In the end, this tea isn’t just from Taiwan. It is a part of the landscape, culture and people. A part of Taiwan itself.

WATCH THE FILM

Ascend to the mist-veiled peaks of Taiwan’s Alishan, where tradition and terrain converge in every leaf. In this chapter of TWG Tea’s acclaimed Tea Origin Film Series, uncover the quiet artistry and enduring heritage behind the legendary Alishan Oolong. Watch the film and explore the companion story here.

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BEHIND THE SCENES: ALISHAN

A LIVING LANDSCAPE

THE TEA MASTER

THE DANCE OF OXIDATION

A TASTE OF TAIWAN

WATCH THE FILM

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TEA PROCESSING METHODs
Processing Method determine the variety of tea (i.e., black tea, green tea, white tea, etc.)

TEA GRADING
Defines the type of leaf harvested to produce a particular type of black tea, the finest being FTGFOP1.

SUSTAINABLE TEAS
Teas sourced from plantations committed to sustainable and organic farming practices.