THE Many Faces of Tea

- Natural Tea Manor

Cathy Teng　/　photos by Kent Chuang　/　tr. by Brandon Yen

April 2026

中文

Natural Tea Manor reinterprets the classical dish Dongpo pork by cooking it with Tieguanyin oolong tea, and uses powdered tea to make a diverse range of snacks. This innovative approach distinguishes the business from other more traditional tea plantations.

For most people, tea is simply a beverage, but at Natural Tea Manor in New Taipei’s Xizhi District, tea is also a food ingredient, a garnish, and even an enabler of the transformation of this local establishment.

Tsai Hsu-chih is both a cook and a tea maker who blends tea with food ingredients, making deft use of the fragrance of tea and controlling the fermentation and roasting processes.

The birth of a restaurant

Natural Tea Manor, just a ten-minute drive from Taipei’s Nangang train station, is an old tea plantation-cum-factory currently run by its fourth-generation owner. At the entrance we come across the Tian Mama logo—the Ministry of Agriculture’s recognition of innovative food businesses making use of healthy local produce—and an eye-catching sign celebrating the restaurant’s inclusion in the Michelin Guide in 2025.

CEO Tsai Hsu-chih tells us that his family used to send most of their tea to be sold in Taipei City. Unhappy with the discounts demanded by middlemen, his mother started running a tea stall on holidays at the entrance to a nearby hiking trail. As time went by, she built a customer base, some of whom would travel to Xizhi to buy her teas and chat with her. If they stayed late, she would cook up some noodles and vegetables for them to eat.

This set in train the transformation of Natural Tea Manor. Tsai’s mother defined the scope of the new venture by focusing on tea cuisine. After completing his compulsory military service, Tsai obtained professional cookery qualifications and started developing tea-based dishes. The family business thus diversified from tealeaves to tea cuisine.

To accompany fried glutinous rice balls, Tsai Hsu-chih deep-fries rehydrated Oriental Beauty tealeaves. The crispy texture carries a delicate scent, making us crave for more.

Visitors come to Natural Tea Manor for its tea-flavored cuisine, including camellia oil chicken, lemon fish, and braised pork on rice.

Culinary innovations

How does one reconcile the delicate aromas of tea with the pungency of Chinese-style cuisine? “This has to do with my dual identity as a tea maker and a cook.” Tapping into his knowledge of the subtle fragrance of tea and the fermentation and roasting processes, Tsai is able to integrate tea with food ingredients effortlessly.

Two kinds of tea are used for the chicken soup on Natural Tea Manor’s menu. The tea cooked with the stock serves to accentuate the rich keynote flavor. When the chicken soup is about to be served, freshly brewed Baozhong (Pouchong)—a lightly oxidized tea—is added to give more texture to the scent. The lemon fish here also features the delicately refreshing aroma of Baozhong, which sets off the savoriness of seafood.

For fried glutinous rice balls (a traditional Taiwanese dessert), Tsai deep-fries rehydrated Oriental Beauty tealeaves. The crispy texture, together with the gentle aroma, keeps customers coming back for more.

Tian Mama and Michelin

In early 2023, Natural Tea Manor joined the Tian Mama accreditation scheme under the Council of Agriculture (now the Ministry of Agriculture). In June, Tsai’s Dongpo pork, cooked with Tieguanyin oolong tea, made it to the final round of a culinary competition held under the aegis of Tian Mama.

The occasion gave Tsai an opportunity to compare notes with Thomas Chien, a renowned Taiwanese chef with a background in French cuisine. They reduced Dongpo pork in guabao steamed buns to the size of finger foods and blended tea powder into the dough used to make the buns. “We stewed the Dongpo pork using Tieguanyin-style tealeaves with a mellow aroma.”

The conversation with Chien “opened up new vistas for me at the intersection of agriculture and culinary arts,” Tsai says shyly, but beaming with contentment. After a series of trials and upgrades, Natural Tea Manor was included in the Michelin Guide in 2025.

Tsai Hsu-chih treats everything in his family’s tea plantation with love. When it comes to tea, he has a wealth of stories and insights to share.

Natural Tea Manor grows Jin Xuan, a cultivar resistant to pests and adaptable to climate change, making it very suitable for organic farming.

Pushing the boundaries

Showing us Natural Tea Manor’s 6,000-square-meter plantation, Tsai says that the tea plants here are Jin Xuan. Known for its creamy flavor, this robust cultivar is especially suitable for organic farming. Tsai allows his plants to grow tall, handpicking the tender buds to produce premium tea, while the leaves lower down the branches are harvested by machine and made into commercial tea powder.

From powdered tea, a diverse range of tea-flavored delicacies have come into being, including new year’s cakes, fortune cakes, ice cream, steamed buns, peanut cakes, nougat biscuits, soymilk, popcorn, and even pineapple cakes. Visitors to Natural Tea Manor are spoiled for choice. “Actually, commercial-grade tea is where we really push the boundaries,” Tsai says with a smile.

At Natural Tea Manor, we see the many faces of tea and trace its fragrant presence in a cup, on a dish, or in gift sets. For Tsai, this diversity comes from a single source: the tea plantation that carries memories of four generations of his family.

Tsai Hsu-chih and his wife, Salanda Chou, have taken great pains to uphold the tea culture their family has built up over four generations, with a view to passing their beloved flavors and memories down to posterity.

The Dakeng area of New Taipei City’s Xizhi District is home to Baozhong, a lightly oxidized tea with a delicate, refreshing scent. Tsai Hsu-chih’s family has been working here for four generations.