For years,"bubble tea," in which sugar, cream and tapioca are added to black tea, has been trendy in Taiwan. More recently,"kung fu tea"has become popular, highlighting the subtle aftertaste of plain black tea. (photo by Jimmy Lin)

It's said that the high-mountain oolong teas of Taiwan are unmatched in aroma and flavor; no others come close. Yet despite their reputation and quality, there aren't that many mountain areas in Taiwan fit for growing tea, so yields are limited. As such, a new quest arose: to develop distinctive teas other than high-mountain oolong that can grow at altitudes under 1,000 meters.

Since you can't change the elevations of available land to grow more oolong tea, why not try something else? How about growing more affordable black teas-the fully fermented kind-at lower altitudes?

Over the past several years, Sun Moon Lake Black Tea has made a name for itself. And Rui-sui and Ming---jian Townships, respectively in Hua-lien and Nan-tou Counties, are hot on its tail, conspiring to form a new wave in Taiwan's tea lore: a new "black gold."

Though Taiwan is famous for its delicate, semi-fermented oolong and pou-chong teas, black tea reigns supreme in the global mainstream tea market, accounting for over 80% of sales.

Interestingly, Taiwan mostly produced fully fermented black teas and unfermented green teas during Japanese rule.

Back then, the Japanese introduced a large-leaf variety of Assam black tea from India, planting in places in Nan-tou -County such as Yuchi, Puli and Sun Moon Lake, to be sold in Japan. The subsequent Kuo-min-tang era saw the glory days of black tea exports.

Says Taiwan Tea Manufacturers' Association advisor Jackson Huang, who traveled to 67 countries in Europe, North America and northern Africa with one suitcase (and whose father founded ABC Tea in 1945), exports made up 75-85% of Taiwan's total production of black and green teas in those days.

In the 1970s, labor costs skyrocketed with the booming economy, and growers of black and green tea in Taoyuan, Hsin-chu and Miaoli were unable to compete internationally. Tea growers gradually moved southward thereafter, and production of high-value-added oolong tea began to increase. And with continuing growth in domestic demand, Taiwan tea makers started to turn from exports to domestic sales. Now exports account for only 15-20% of total production as black and green teas were gradually replaced by oolong tea.