Tea Geography

[Ian McCarthy]

Sha-li-shian, Yu-shan, Nantou, Mu-zha, Li-shan... Where do I find them? What are the borders and boundaries for these designations? Maps would be great. Similar information for Anxi, Wuyi, and Pu-erh would be fantastic as well. Thanks.

[Will]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_h1-6T8BULg4/SQkRraQ8jCI/AAAAAAAAAAM/ENv6yZ8Vy6g/s1600-h/TAiwan+tea+map.jpg (via http://floatingleavestea.blogspot.com/2008/11/taiwan-tea-map.html)

The Pinyin in this map is not exactly standard.

All of the famous oolong producing areas are in a fairly compact area, as Fujian province (and Chaozhou, which is on the border between Fujian and Guangdong provinces) is right across the straight from Taiwan.

See also:

http://houdeblog.com/oldblog/comments.php?y=06&m=09&entry=entry060926-134051

This is especially interesting, since he's speculating that the North and South parts of Taiwan roughly tend to prefer the varietals which are common in the corresponding areas across the strait.

[Will]

Came across this map on an old friend's site (http://phyllsheng.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html), and remembered this thread from yesterday.

While it doesn't drill down into the more specific areas, maybe helps provide a little bit of context.

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t244/AITAW/Plantations_sm.jpg

[Ian McCarthy]

Thanks Will, this is the sort of stuff I'm looking for. Anything else to this effect would be appreciated.

[Wholemeal Crank]

I did some googling and discovered that this sort of map is a lot harder to find than I would have guessed.

I did find a Green Tea Map of China, but it was a lot of searching and not a lot of finding. Bet there's a ton of info available if we could just read chinese....

[Richard Kilgore]

There are also maps for each Chinese and Taiwanese tea listed on norbutea.com. They may not be as detailed as you are looking for, but these are a good orientation. You could work from these maps to a detailed Atlas of China. I don't think the new Japanese teas have maps yet.

Hope this helps.