Camelia Formosensis also know as SHAN CHA. It's an endemic tea plant probably well know for millennia by Taiwan Indigenous People. Some years ago when rediscovered by Han People there was kind of golden fever for those leaves and often ancient trees has been harmed or completely cut down just for sake of one harvest and quick money. Luckily Taiwanese mountains are deep and mostly impossible to penetrate so there are many wild camellias hidden deep in the jungles.
 
Currently this trees are under government protection and its harvesting its punished by law. As an hope for us true tea lovers, there are few well respected masters who got the special permission to harvest those often many meters high and sometimes hundreds of years old trees. This tea is one of those rare cases. Every year there is only one to two harvests and quantity is usually very small. It has very powerful wild forrest energy.
 
It takes almost 2 hours hike into the mountain to pick the leaves. No car can penetrate so deep. After picking, pickers have to hurry downhill to process the leaves but some of the leaves start to oxidise naturally. Therefore tea is not completely 'green'. It is than fried on the wok pretty much like a Pu-erh but after tea is finished and dried, it its given a slight additional roast. 
 
Anctient forest, 1500 meters, LiuGuei, Kaoshiung County 
cultivar: Camelia Formosensis (山茶)
Hand Picked, light fermentation, light roast 
 
March 2022 Harvest