Amid squeals of laughter and much ruckus, I pound away, lifting the heavy pestle with all my might and landing it with a thud on the mound of boiled sticky rice in the mortar. The ceremony of making the much-loved ‘mua chi’, glutinous rice balls coated with peanut and sugar, is in full swing at the farm homestay I’m at; my hosts urge guests to participate in this ritual, essentially reserved for family and friends who gather at weddings and other special occasions. Even as the pulp is tossed in powdered peanut and sugar and passed around to be shared and eaten, I can’t help but think what a far cry this evening has been from the previous ones, when I roamed Taiwan’s buzzing night markets that sell the latest gadgets and quirky souvenirs, swarming with hip youngsters of a nation steadily racing towards urbanisation.
To get to Taiwan’s tea kingdom of Alishan and the surrounding central highlands of Chiayi county, I boarded Alishan Forest Railway. A narrow gauge railway, it was originally constructed in 1912 for the logging of cypress and other local wood by the Japanese (Taiwan was a Japanese colony at the time). Slowly chugging its way up from Beimen station, the train left behind buildings and humanity and climbed past a changing forest of bamboo, betel nut and a variety of fern. Soon, an elderly man came up waving a photo album. He passed around a nearly 50-year-old black-and-white photograph of his father, as a young worker of the railway line during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. The photo had a poignant and timeless quality to it much like the unhurried pace of the train, unusual but endearing in a country interlaced with bullet trains.
Crossing small, desolate stations with the odd lone passenger, the train finally pulled into Fenchihu, the most popular hill town in the Alishan region. As I walked through the tapering lanes of the mountain town dotted with local tourists, I was reminded of my own hometown in the Himalayas. Roasted corncobs swapped with ready-to-eat quail eggs nestled in tea jelly, hill berries replaced with pork jerky on wooden skewers, and lime chutney with pickled bamboo shoot. Everywhere, enthusiastic sellers thrust out little treats for pedestrians to sample and buy and I popped strange flavours into my mouth as I went along, including a harmless-looking cookie that exploded into stinging wasabi in my nasal tract! It was only then that I realised that the area was not just known for tea, but also the ubiquitous wasabi plant that I had never before seen and which was on sale everywhere here.
Fresh golden brews for sample at Sheng Le farm in Chiayi county.
Being in Taiwan’s tea county surrounded by rolling green hills heaving with tea leaves, it was only natural to make a pit stop for a cup at the famed Sheng Le farm. The award-winning enterprise takes you on a personal tour of the tea gardens where visitors are shown how to pick the best leaves, select and grade them, and shown how they are processed back in the outlet. Fresh tea can also be made from the leaves right away, which is just what I wanted to try. Over an elaborate sit-down session of spreading out multiple cups and the dexterous pouring of a variety of golden brew, I sampled different kinds of tea, and a version of the Indian ‘chai’ which I politely declined. The first sample, delicate with its aromatic scent of fresh leaves, was what I liked best and what I eventually purchased before leaving for my ‘minsu’ — the homestay.
When I entered Long Yun Leisure Farm run by the Teng family, the first thing that struck me was the children at play. They stuck their foot through a looped string attached on either end to a small bamboo pipe wide as a jar, and moved around like clowns on stilts. It looked fairly easy, but when their toothless grandfather told me to try this game from his childhood, my entire focus was on not falling and being subject to humiliation in front of five-year olds. After coming out unscathed, I decided to indulge in something more grown up and go for a walk in the serene hills around, so far removed from the glitz of Taipei, the mind-boggling electronic markets of the country, and the grandeur of its monuments. I set off on ‘Cloud Trail’, a 670-metre-long trail that connects further to ‘Tea Trail’ and ‘Mist Trail’, developed around the farm. The track took me deep into a forest of Douglas firs lined with moss and dew, wooden viewing platforms that broke the green now and then, and spiralling steps that blended into the forest like the shiny gossamer of spider webs and disappeared into the foliage. It was unbelievably quiet and a near sacred atmosphere, disturbed only by my congenial host’s comical posing for photographs.
I returned to a warm meal prepared by the lady of the house, complete with hot Chinese bread and poached pears. Though my body was still adjusting to the frightfully early Taiwanese suppers, the flavours and aromas of the dishes worked their charm and I gave in to yet another early feast. Supper was followed by ‘mua chi’ making, in which all guests that night participated to turn an ordinary eve into a festive one. Despite an early start the next day to catch sunrise at Crag Top in the outskirts, I stayed up late till the last of the voices had died down, and listened instead to the loud cicadas that belied their own existence in the heart of an ever-buzzing country like Taiwan.
Born and brought up in the Himalayas, Shikha Tripathi is a journalist based in Binsar.
