News

    The 8th “Nantou Global Tea Expo” was held in Zhongxing New Village on October 7. Over the course 9 days, the event drew nearly half a million visitors, setting an all-time high record, while the total revenue generated was approximately NT$60 million. County Magistrate Ming-chen Lin attended the closing ceremony on the 15th, where he sealed and signed a jar of commemorative tea with other dignitaries. He indicated that a dedicated product sales area will be created at the Nantou Lantern Festival for the farmers to sell their premium tea, coffee and other agricultural products.

    At the opening ceremony, County Magistrate Lin commented that tea farmers and consumers are able to forge a good relationship and marketing channel through the tea expo, because consumers can have tea delivered to their doorsteps over the phone after the tea expo. During the closing ceremony, County Magistrate Lin indicated that despite increasing high quality tea sales stalls from around 200 last year to 300 this year, there is still a shortage of stall space, thus County Magistrate Lin has promised to expand the scale of the 9th Nantou Global Tea Expo next year.

    With the theme of “Green Wonderland”, the objective is to promote tea-drinking to younger groups. Besides the tea fairy guiding visitors to various exhibition halls, “Tea with a Meal” is also the highlight of this year, where the “enjoying Taiwanese oolong tea with global cuisines” approach is adopted to let the public experience a new way of dining, in turn introducing specialty tea in Taiwan to the international stage.

    The major breakthrough and creativity this year is the centralization of all activity experience halls around Zhongxing field, where a boardwalk was paved to create a pedestrian area that complemented the agricultural produce sales area, attracting tourists. This was unlike other experiential activities that require climbing up the hill. Furthermore, Alice’s Tea Dilemma was held for the “Award Winning Tea Tasting” hall, where interesting, playful concepts were applied to allow the public to appreciate the characteristics of Nantou County’s black tea.

    International tea culture is one of the event’s major highlights, therefore tea ceremonies from Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam, Russia, Persia, Taiwan and Tung Ting were presented in the International Tea Ceremony Hall. This was followed by a thousand-people tea party, folk song concert, and thousand-people tea rolling activities that are sure to generate wave after wave of excitement and attract more crowds.