Ruby Red Black Tea

When I first started writing about tea in Taiwan, I hadn’t yet tried the famed Ruby Red black tea from Sun Moon Lake. I was solely focused on oolong tea, which dominates production in Taiwan. After someone pointed out my oversight, I’ll admit I still didn’t have high expectations for Ruby Red. The first time I took a sip, everything changed.

The flavor of the ruby was unlike anything I’d tasted in tea before. It was the first time I fell in love with a tea on the very first try. Other premium Taiwanese teas, such as Oriental Beauty and Dongding, I grew to love only after having them a few times.

The ability to discern tea flavors is an acquired skill, and I’m still working on it. In the past, I thought it must be all in the mind.

I looked at the label, which described “vanilla flavors with hints of fig and dried cherry.” That might sound a bit exaggerated, but if I really focused, I could actually pick up those notes.

But it turns out that over time, one can indeed fine-tune their ability to identify and name even the most subtle aromas and flavors. For example, France’s “noses,” the professional scent experts who work in the perfume industry, can isolate thousands of different smells. This ability comes from a lifetime of smelling things.

All the world’s tea comes from the same plant, Camellia sinensis, which has two main varieties: Sinensis, usually grown in China and Japan, and Assamica, typically grown in India and Sri Lanka (Ceylon). Taiwan actually has its own native wild tea plant, Camellia, which botanists are still trying to classify, and some research suggests it may be its own variety.

This plant grows at elevations of 900 to 1,800 meters in central, southern, and eastern Taiwan, and is well known to the island’s indigenous peoples.

Tea plants were first brought to Taiwan from Wuyi Mountain in Fujian, the ancestral home of most non-indigenous Taiwanese. By the 1860s, Formosa oolong tea had already gained a solid reputation in Britain and the United States, and by the end of the 19th century, it had become Taiwan’s top export.