A Pour-Over to the Mountaintop
- Le Lotus Bleu
- Oct 12
- 4 min read
On a Taiwanese mountain where coffee and tea share the same clouds, the line between ritual and agriculture disappears.
The Mountain and the Train
The Alishan Range, in central Taiwan’s Chiayi County, rises more than 2,600 meters into the clouds. The slopes are steep, the weather unpredictable, and the mist nearly constant, conditions that have made this one of the world’s most unique agricultural zones.
At dawn, the Alishan Forest Railway screeches to life. Built by the Japanese in 1912, it’s one of the few surviving narrow-gauge mountain railways still operating in Asia. The track climbs from the lowlands of Chiayi City up through cedar forests and into the high mountain plateaus, gaining over 2,000 meters in just 70 kilometers.
Originally, the train carried cedar and cypress logs down to the coast. When the logging industry ended in the 1970s, it found new purpose, bringing visitors and farmers up into tea country. Today, it’s still the only way to see how life and agriculture change with altitude.
At the base, where the fog first begins to thin, you’ll often find a local farmer standing behind a makeshift coffee stall, the unofficial beginning of Alishan’s climb.
Coffee at the Base of the Clouds
Coffee isn’t new to Taiwan, but Alishan has made it personal. The crop was first introduced during the Japanese occupation in the early 20th century. It languished for decades, overshadowed by rice, tea, and sugar until farmers in the 1990s realized that their volcanic soil and altitude gave coffee the same advantages as oolong tea: cool nights, diffused sunlight, and mineral-rich terrain.
Alishan’s coffee is grown between 1,000 and 1,600 meters, typically on the lower slopes that are too cold for tropical fruit but too mild for tea. Most of the farms are small, family-run plots, many started by tea growers looking to diversify without leaving the land.
The beans are usually Arabica varietals: Typica, Caturra, SL34, and Bourbon. They’re handpicked, washed, and sun-dried on bamboo mats, often right next to tea-processing sheds.
The result is a cup that mirrors its mountain: clean, floral, slightly citrusy, with a finish of brown sugar and honey. It’s balanced, less bitter than most tropical coffees, softer on the palate. Many locals drink it black, like tea.
And that’s what makes it fascinating, Alishan coffee tastes like the land that also makes its tea. They share the same altitude, the same water, the same clouds. Even the same patience.
The Climb to Tea Country
As the train climbs higher, the air gets thinner and sweeter. The temperature drops by nearly ten degrees. You pass through dense cypress groves, through switchbacks so tight the train loops back on itself, until the world outside turns silver with fog.
Then the landscape changes, terraces appear, carved into the mountain in perfect arcs. These are the legendary Alishan High Mountain Oolong (阿里山高山茶) fields, cultivated between 1,400 and 2,400 meters.
The Birth of High Mountain Oolong
Tea has been grown in Taiwan since the 18th century, when Fujianese immigrants brought seeds from the Wuyi Mountains of China. But it wasn’t until the late 1970s that the country began specializing in high-altitude oolong. Alishan, with its elevation, humidity, and dramatic temperature swings, was ideal.
The flagship variety here is Qingxin Oolong (青心烏龍), known for its small, tender leaves and complex aromatics. Grown in mist and shade, the leaves accumulate sugars slowly, developing a creamy texture and soft floral profile.
Processing oolong is a meticulous art:
Picking: Early morning, one bud and two leaves.
Withering: Sun-dried just enough to soften the leaves.
Oxidation: Light to medium, usually 20–30%.
Rolling: Hand-rolled into tight pearls that unfurl when steeped.
Roasting: Gentle charcoal roast to lock in flavor.
The result is a tea that’s neither black nor green but perfectly between bright, creamy, and balanced. The best Alishan oolongs carry notes of orchid, osmanthus, butter, and alpine honey, with a finish locals describe as yunwei, “the flavor of clouds.”
The People and the Legacy
Before tea, these mountains were home to the Tsou tribe, one of Taiwan’s Indigenous groups. Their language and rituals are tied to the mountain, they still perform ceremonies honoring the spirits of rain and harvest. Many of the families who now grow tea are Tsou or descendants of settlers who learned farming from them.
The Japanese left a different kind of legacy: engineering, infrastructure, and an obsession with refinement. Their influence shaped Taiwan’s tea industry from plantation mapping to processing precision. Alishan’s modern tea culture sits right at the intersection of Tsou reverence for the land and Japanese devotion to craft.
It’s a blend of spirit and system, intuitive and disciplined, wild and exact.
Shared Terroir
In Alishan, the line between crops blurs. Coffee and tea share terroir, and that changes everything.
Both plants are shaped by altitude, mist, and soil acidity. Both are harvested by hand and processed in micro-batches. Both depend on timing, intuition, and patience. Farmers here joke that coffee is the mountain’s “morning personality” and tea its “afternoon soul.”
Together, they form a kind of agricultural harmony that few regions in the world can match, a reflection of how Taiwan reinvents global traditions without losing local identity.
Why It Matters
Most people visit Alishan for the sunrise, the “sea of clouds” that rolls through the valley each morning. But the real story isn’t what happens above the clouds; it’s what grows inside them.
This mountain shows what patience can do. Coffee grown slowly enough to taste like citrus and honey. Tea hand-rolled so delicately it opens like a memory. Families who’ve turned a once-logged forest into a living classroom for sustainable craft.
If Darjeeling is the champagne of tea, Alishan tea is its single-origin whiskey, nuanced, high-altitude, and alive with place.
The Return
By the time you descend, the sun has burned off the mist. The tea terraces gleam green under the light. At the base, the farmer’s still there, pouring another cup, steady as ever. You realize it’s the perfect symbol of the mountain itself, a pour-over at sunrise, tea above the clouds, and patience connecting everything in between.
🍃☕️🚂
Le Lotus Bleu Journal
Exploring the art, history, and spirit of the world’s most remarkable teas.
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