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Meet the Farmer: The Wu Sisters | Yuchi, Taiwan | Red Jade

Farmers: The Wu Sisters
Location: Yuchi, Nantou, Taiwan
Tea: Red Jade

At Plantation, we champion female-led enterprises, and many of the tea farms we work with are run by women, like the Wu sisters in Nantou, Taiwan.

They are second-generation Red Jade tea growers whose patriarch played a critical role in a small tea revolution that took place almost a century ago.

Wu Chin-Hsi worked with a Japanese entrepreneur during occupation to start cultivating Indian Camellia Assamica tea trees in Taiwan. Years later, in 1999, tea researchers in Taiwan built off that early work and developed a new cultivar called Taiwan tea #18.

Red Jade Black Tea Farm - Plantation by teakha

 

Wu invested in this cultivar, and his conviction paid off. Taiwan tea #18, or Red Jade (紅玉紅茶), as it is endearingly called, is now considered the crème de la crème of Taiwnaese black tea.

Red Jade is a sweet black tea, with a strong fruity aroma. It gives a unique tingling sensation on the tongue, similar to the effect of mint or eucalyptus. 

Red Jade Tea Farm - Plantation by teakha


Today, Father Wu having long passed, the Red Jade tea farm is run entirely by the Wu sisters.

Red Jade Tea Farm - Plantation by teakha
If you haven't already, we highly recommend you try our Red Jade produced by the Wu sisters.

As a female-led enterprise ourselves, we champion other women in the industry. See the other women-led farms we source our teas from.