Taiwan’s tea growers scramble to adapt to extreme weather

One plantation owner estimates his crop has been slashed in half after torrential rain followed last year’s drought

The changing conditions have brought earlier pest attacks and even the flavour of the island’s prized teas has altered

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Taiwan’s tea plantations are grappling with the effects of extreme weather changes. Photo: Reuters

Published: 11:54am, 14 Oct 2021Updated: 11:54am, 14 Oct 2021

Last year’s once-in-a-century drought followed by torrential rain this year have left Taiwan’s tea farmers scrambling to adapt to the extreme weather changes.

“Climate is the thing we can least control in managing our tea plantation,” said Chien Shun-yih as he looked out over his withering tea fields in the island’s picturesque southern Meishan township. “We really do rely on the sky to eat.”

Chien Shun-yih is working on strategies for his family tea plantation in Taiwan’s Meishan township to cope with the extreme weather. Photo: Reuters

Taiwan’s tea output does not come close to matching China or India’s, but what it lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality, especially the high mountain premium Oolong variety that Meishan specialises in.

Tea has been grown in the mountains around Meishan since the island was part of China’s Qing dynasty in the 19th century. The industry matured and expanded under Japanese imperial rule from 1895-1945.

Chien, 28, who returned to run the family plantation after his father died of cancer four years ago, is now working on coping strategies for extreme weather, including hacking deep into the undergrowth to look for pools to pipe water to the fields.

Lin Shiou-ruei, a government researcher helping Meishan’s farmers, said another problem the extreme weather brings is pests that attack the young tea buds.