Today when I arrived at work I found three tins of tea on my desk.

The tea was a thank you from some Taiwanese colleagues. One of their engineers had attended a class at our office while I was in Canada for the past two weeks.

I had a bit of trouble translating the characters, but luckily I have a few coworkers who speak Chinese. The large character at the bottom is for tea. You see the same character above, with Li Shan or Pear Mountain Tea in the rectangle above. Li is pear and Shan is mountain.

Li Shan is part of the Jade Mountain range and is where some of the highest tea gardens in Taiwan are located.

High Mountain tea must be grown above 1,000 meters.

Here are the tea leaves which are rolled into tiny little balls. The color is very interesting.

Here the leaves have opened with the addition of the water. They are releasing the wonderful flavor compounds into the water.

Here you can see the wonderful golden color of the Ali Shan tea. The tea has a wonderful aroma. The taste is a bit sweet with a hint of fruit. The tea also has a nice buttery texture that feels really nice in the mouth.

Definitely a wonderful tea. I have had three cups so far this evening 🙂

Thanks to my Taiwanese colleagues.

Steven