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Today, the rare, delicious Dong Ding oolong tea from Taiwan is prized throughout the world. Nicknamed the ‘Fair Lady’, the tea is loved for its exceptionally strong fragrance and sweet aftertaste that few teas have.

However, few know that the tea is actually a specimen of a Wu Yi oolong tea strain that has been carefully selected from Wu Yi Mountain in Fujian province and re-planted in Taiwan.

It’s not surprising at all because that piece of history was almost 400 years old!

Lin Fang Chi, a young Taiwanese scholar, came to the Fujian province for the provincial exam that could offer him a post in the government. Luckily, Lin passed the exam.

Upon returning, Lin hoped to bring his friends some gifts. Since Lin was poor and couldn’t afford the travelling expenses, his fellow villagers donated the money to make his trip possible.

Almost immediately, Lin decided to bring what the province was most famous for – the oolong tea trees grown in the Wu Yi Mountain. He personally had tasted the tea, and was stunned by the exquisite fragrance and flavor. He hoped the tea that was highly valued in the market would earn his fellow villagers big money for many years to come.

So Lin brought a batch of 36 oolong tea trees back to Taiwan. Day in and day out, Lin and the villagers carefully cultivated their precious oolong tea trees. In a few years, the tea plants began to produce tea leaves that was highly priced in the market.

Later, in a meeting with the emperor, Lin offered his new tea of Taiwan, which stunned the emperor with its deep and refreshing flavor. Since the tea was grown in high peaks of Dong Ding Mountain in Taiwan, the emperor renamed it ‘Dong Ding’, or ‘Frozen Summit’.

Over the centuries, the making of the tea was refined, and now it becomes a class all of its own. But tea experts say that if you savor with ease, you can still find hints of similarity in between the two.

After all, Wu Yi Mountain is the home of Dong Ding, and those 36 Wuyi oolong tea trees the mother of the ‘Fair Lady’.