I want to export Taiwanese high quality tea directedly from Taiwan tea farmers

Hi everyone,

I came from Taiwan, and am living in the US with my husband. We are going to sell high quality tea to North America. In the beginning, we want to focus on Taiwanese high mountain oolong tea, which my neighbor’s families grow and sell for generations. Their tea farms locate between Jade Mountain (YuShan,玉山) and Ali Mountain (AliShan,阿里山), about 8,000 10,000 feet.

Not just high mountain oolong, they also produce High Mountain Ginshan Oolong tea(金宣高山茶, milky tea), Jade Oolong tea (玉山烏龍), Seasoned tea (老茶), black tea (紅茶), etc. They grow and produce tea for more than 40 years, and my neighbor has been a tea drinker for more than 60 years!

Other than from their own tea farms,they can help buy Taiwanese tea from other tea farms, for example, WenShan BaoChong (文山包種), DongDing tea (凍頂茶), and the tea from the best tea farm in Taiwan. They are friends with many tea farmers, and can always keep the best tea before selling to China and Japan. They are all very nice farmers, and seasoned tea makers!

BTW, I am a native Mandarin speaker. I’d be more than happy to help everyone to translate Chinese into English, and explain tea tins and tea tags.

I am wondering if there is a market for exceptional Taiwanese tea. Please let me know what do you think and give me some directions. Thanks in advance!!

15 Replies

I don’t have any particular directions or advice, but I’m certain that there would be plenty of interest here for your Taiwanese teas.

I, for one, have really enjoyed the few teas from Taiwan that I’ve tried so far and would definitely be interested in more.

Wishing you the best of luck! (^^)

Thank you! I am so happy meeting many Taiwanese tea lovers :)

Login or sign up to post a message.

AJ said

Welcome to Steepster. I’ll start by saying that we’re always in need of translators, so thanks for the offer. One of the many uses of the forums here is identifying “mystery teas” people have received.

And there is DEFINITELY a market for Taiwanese tea here, so you’re in the right place. If you need help getting started from a market/retail perspective (since it looks like you’ve already got your sources set up), I’d suggest first visiting Gingko’s site (http://lifeinteacup.com also on steepster here: http://steepster.com/gingko and on teatrade here: http://teatra.de/members/gingkoseto/); she specializes in Chinese and Taiwanese teas, primarily oolongs and dry-stored puehr; I don’t know how willing she’d be in divulging her marketing secrets, but she always seems friendly. She also comes to our rescue in translating “mystery teas”.

Another place to check out would be http://teatra.de, which is a tea market site (the Ebay of Tea), and a tea blogging system. It’s an idea, depending on whether or not you want to set up a whole site for the teas you plan to import or not.

I know Steepster has an apatite for milk oolongs, and I specifically enjoy Taiwanese black tea from Sun Moon Lake, Nantou County.

Thank you so much! I read some of Gingko’s articles. They are very helpful!

Login or sign up to post a message.

Sammerz314 said

In my opinion, Taiwan produces some of the best Oolongs you can buy. My personal favourites are Da Yu Ling (grown at an altitude of over 2000 meters!), Jin Xuan and Oriental Beauty Oolong. I am definitely interested :).

Login or sign up to post a message.

GuyOne said

Lulu, I’m also looking forward to your business. I just placed my third order with TaiwanTeaCraft, terrific tea and very informative web store. I also regularly buy from Floating Leaves, great tea and good website. Verdant had a decent DongDing, Red Blossom has 2 excellent aged Baozongs and a good 2013 Alishan. My first order from Origin Tea is sitting in LA customs, folks love them over at TeaChat. I’ve also bought one tea from zen8tea on Ebay, good tea but an uninformative store.

off topic- sorry! I just found taiwanteacrafts too! They have some great oolong! on topic- as part of marketing, once you figure out how you are going to sell the tea, you can set up a facebook account for your tea company and use it to promote your tea as well as posting blogs about… your company or the tea growers, or what ever it is you want to use it for. Most of the ones I like to follow update at least once a month and usually include something informative about tea (How its processed, a fun tutorial on how to brew it, maybe an old folk tale about tea, a funny personal story, a tour of a tea farm with an interview with the farmer, etc.). Just something you might be able to do, that would make your business more visible.

Login or sign up to post a message.

Rie said

Hi! This sounds amazing, wish you success in your endeavors.

There is definitely a market for Taiwanese tea, especially for merchants who can be both personal in approach and very detailed with information regarding their tea. Would love to see clear disclosure of production details (area, altitude, season and year, etc.). But also I think people would love most of all to have a trusted personal source for specific, high-quality Taiwanese tea and information. It seems that although one site may have a better tea than another, the merchant who is the most informative, transparent and connected with his community, while still having high-quality tea of course, is more successful in the market.

Would personally love to have a direct, trusted source for GABA oolong and Muzha TGY. And would love to have more Milky oolong and High Mountain on the market of course!! Best wishes again, and thank you for letting us know about it.

Thank you! I will introduce more info about my tea, including who grows it, who picks it , and how we package and ship it, etc. I will try my best to provide these information.

Login or sign up to post a message.

Hikari said

I really hope you succeed in this, fellow Taiwanese!
It’s nice to get tea from Taiwan especially when you don’t have to lug it over to the States yourself.

I’m most interested in Oriental beauty, Tie Guan Yin, 龍泉 and 珠露 (sorry fellow steepsterites, I have no idea how those two are called in English)

Love it!
Soooo happy meeting other Taiwanese friends here!

Login or sign up to post a message.

ashmanra said

I love Taiwanese tea, from oolongs to “matcha” to Ruby 18 types. It sounds like an interesting proposal to me!

Login or sign up to post a message.

Thank you all! I am so excited about my business. I will post my website and blog soon~

Brian0823 said

Hi Lulu, I have a friend who is familiar with some tea farmers, I believe he can find some good tea for you. So if you are interested in that, please contact me.

Great! It is really wonderful~! Please contact me: redable(at)gmail.com Thanks!

Login or sign up to post a message.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.