Thirteenth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Based on field research in the Alishan mountain area in Taiwan, this paper explores cultural processes that shape the taste of Taiwan’s high-mountain Oolong tea. The tea enjoys a great commercial success, favored especially by those who are seeking the fresh nature taste of the high mountains. Small-holder tea makers cater to the customer preference to produce teas that are greener in color and lighter in the level of oxidization, yet this approach has narrowed the taste of teas and brought about some unwanted effects on the human body. At the same time, some tea makers go off the commercial grid to make white teas or heavily oxidized teas according to their own perception of the nature of the fresh tea leaves—they engage more intimately with the tea leaves, and their products have become a form of personal art and expression.This “personal” tea making effectively compliments commercial tea making by encouraging diversity of tastes and cultural empowerment. In discussing these two categories of tea making, I examine effects brought by discourses of nature, varied attention paid to the tea leaves as agents, and different roles of the senses (seeing, hearing, smell, taste, and touch). In the conclusion, I highlight different roles played by the notion of nature in tea making, bring taste-making into a historical orbit of changing cultural processes, and anticipate future articulation of nature in tea making and tea consumption in Taiwan and beyond.