"Brewing fresh-picked tea with spring water/The green mountain a painted screen." Without the good fortune of living in a tea-growing land, we would never know the pleasure of tasting new mountain tea.
Under the warm May sun, the women wait for the morning dew to dry before climbing the slopes to pick the tea. Basket upon basket of tender fresh tea buds, each comprising a heart and two leaves, are carried down the slopes on shoulder poles to the farmhouse nestling among the hills, to fill its yard with waves of green and billows of fragrance.
Racing to be ready in time for the spring tea competition, the old tea grower calls back all his nieces and nephews from their studies down in the valley, and they work through the night to dry and roll the leaves, separate the stalks and roast the finished tea, determined that the judges' palates will be wetted and their throats sweetened.
After the merriment of the prize-giving ceremony, the Farmers' Association lays on a big tea party. Locals passing by stop in when they smell the aroma. Before you take a sip of the NT$13,000-a-kilogram hand-made champion tea, be sure to savor in its aroma the beauty of the mountains, the sweetness of their waters, and the joy and love with which the tea bush's new shoots drank their fill of the rain and dew.
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