Ruìsuì Tiānhè chá (瑞穗天鶴茶), “heavenly crane tea from Ruisui”, is a collective mark of tea from the Wuhe Plateau (舞鶴台地, Wǔhè táidì) in Ruisui Township of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan. It is the name of an area, not a class: under it go a fully fermented “honey” red tea and a partially fermented tea with pomelo flowers. The name “天鶴茶” was given to the local tea in 1979; the collective mark of the Ruisui farmers’ association has been in force since 2009.
1. Classification and Origin
- Type: There is no single class. The rural tourism portal names two main products of “天鶴茶”: honey red tea (蜜香紅茶, mìxiāng hóngchá), which is fully fermented, and pomelo flower tea (柚花茶, yòuhuā chá), which is partially fermented. The sources disagree on which is the main one here: according to the Chinese Wikipedia, the farms of the plateau make more semi-fermented tea; according to the newspaper Ziyou Shibao (2016), about 90% of the area makes honey red tea.
- Category: Collective mark (團體商標, tuántǐ shāngbiāo). According to the list of origin marks of the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office, mark No. 01386959 belongs to the farmers’ association of Ruisui Township (花蓮縣瑞穗鄉農會) and is valid from November 16, 2009 to November 15, 2029.
- Discrepancy on status: The rural tourism portal calls “天鶴茶” an origin mark of the Wuhe tea area. The office’s list counts it as a collective mark, and a 2020 review of Taiwanese marks states plainly: a collective mark, not a designation of origin.
- Origin: Taiwan (臺灣, Táiwān), Hualien County (花蓮縣, Huālián xiàn), Ruisui Township (瑞穗鄉, Ruìsuì xiāng), the Wuhe Plateau.
- Zone: Exact boundaries of the mark’s zone are not found in the sources consulted.
- Geographic coordinates: The Tropic of Cancer passes through the plateau — about 23.5° N and 121.4° E.
2. History and Cultural Significance
- History:
- The Japanese period. The Japanese company 住田株式會社 plowed the plateau and planted it with arabica coffee, but, according to the portal, the venture was abandoned because of an invasion of ants. Today residents are reviving coffee under the name “舞鶴咖啡”.
- The 1970s. The government began promoting tea here, and many people from the west of the island moved to the plateau. According to another description on the same portal, in 1973 land for tea was bought by farmers from Taoyuan.
- 1979. The head of the agricultural council under the Executive Yuan, Li Chongdao (李崇道), gave the local tea the name “天鶴茶”.
- 1998–1999. A specialist of the Taitung branch of the tea experiment station made honey green tea from leaf damaged by the leafhopper; later the tea growers of Wuhe developed honey red tea from this find. The farmers’ association dates the honey green tea to 1999, the experiment station to 1998: the sources differ by a year.
- 2006–2007. According to the portal, the area’s honey red tea and “紅玉” received a gold medal at a world competition in 2006 and the title of one of the “ten classic teas” of 2007.
- 2009. The start of the collective mark’s term according to the office’s list.
- 2016. According to Ziyou Shibao, the association granted the right to the mark to 14 local farms and firms.
- 2020. A review of Taiwanese marks noted that the mark is effectively not used: honey red tea has become the main product of Hualien, and “天鶴茶” is leaving the market.
- Name: 天鶴 (tiānhè) means “heavenly crane”. According to the township administration’s website as retold by the Chinese Wikipedia, the name was given in memory of Dr. Qian Tianhe (錢天鶴), whom the site calls the developer of the tea; the other sources found do not explain the origin of the name. According to the portal, the name “Wuhe” derives from the sound of the name of a village of the Sakizaya people, 馬立雲 (Maibol, Maivuru); in Japanese 舞鶴 is read “Maizuru”. The old name of the plateau is Saoba (掃叭).
- Cultural significance: On the plateau stand the six-meter Saoba stone pillars (掃叭石柱), a monument of the Beinan culture, sacred to the Amis people.
3. Botanical Description and Raw Material
- Varieties / Cultivars: The portal names 金萱 (Jīnxuān), 青心烏龍 (Qīngxīn wūlóng), “Taicha No. 12 and No. 13” and 大葉烏龍 (Dàyè wūlóng). Jīnxuān and “Taicha No. 12” in this list are one and the same cultivar under its popular and its breeding name.
- Raw material of the honey tea: Leaf sucked by the green leafhopper (小綠葉蟬, xiǎo lǜ yèchán); in Taiwanese this is called 著涏. The association writes that the youngest shoots, one bud with one leaf, are picked by hand. According to the experiment station, the first honey tea was made from leaf of the 大葉烏龍 cultivar.
- Harvest time: According to the association, the leafhopper attacks the bushes most heavily in the meiyu rainy season, around the mángzhòng season (芒種, early June).
4. Terroir and Cultivation Features
- Region: The Wuhe Plateau lies at the confluence of the Xiuguluan (秀姑巒溪) and Hongye (紅葉溪) rivers. The portal describes it as a river terrace raised by the collision of the Philippine and Eurasian plates.
- Soils: The gravel on the surface weathers and is leached, hence a red soil rich in iron oxide, with good drainage; in another description by the portal it is slightly acidic. The portal also counts the Tropic of Cancer among the area’s advantages.
- Altitude: No data in the sources consulted.
- Garden management: The honey aroma comes from insects, so the gardens are managed ecologically or organically, and chemicals are hardly sprayed at all.
- Wuhe recreation area: A tourist area dating from 2000, about 650 ha, in the south of the township; it does not serve as the boundary of the mark.
5. Production Technology
- Honey red tea: Fully fermented. According to the association, a shoot sucked by the leafhopper loses some of its water and the composition of its substances changes — hence the honey tone. Parameters of withering, fermentation and drying are not found in the sources consulted.
- Pomelo flower tea: Partially fermented. Pomelo flowers, which bloom once a year, are roasted together with oolong, and the spring tea absorbs their aroma.
Below is the general scheme of red tea, not a description of the technology of this area:
- Withering (萎凋, wěidiāo).
- Rolling (揉捻, róuniǎn).
- Fermentation (發酵, fājiào).
- Drying (乾燥, gānzào).
6. Organoleptic Characteristics
Teas of different technology go under one mark; below are descriptions of the area’s honey red tea.
- Dry leaf appearance: No descriptions in the sources consulted.
- Dry leaf aroma: No descriptions in the sources consulted.
- Liquor aroma: According to the association, fragrant and fresh, with a distinct honey tone; according to the experiment station, the first honey red tea had an aroma of osmanthus or honey.
- Taste: According to the association, soft, sweet, harmonious, with a long aftertaste. The portal calls “天鶴茶” fragrant and sweetly mellow (芳香甘醇).
- Liquor color: According to the experiment station, the first honey red tea was the color of champagne.
- Spent leaves (wet leaves): No descriptions in the sources consulted.
7. Chemical Composition
No physicochemical data in the sources consulted. The association claims that honey tea contains more catechins than ordinary green tea, but gives no figures.
8. Brewing
Class practice — the parameters depend on which tea under the mark you have in hand.
- Honey red tea: 90–95 °C, 3 g per 150 ml, first infusion about a minute, a gaiwan or a porcelain teapot, several infusions with increasing time.
- Pomelo flower tea: As for oolong — 95–100 °C, 5–7 g per 150 ml, first infusion about a minute.
9. Storage
Class practice. In tight packaging, in a dry, dark place at room temperature, away from odors.
10. Price and Counterfeits
The association sells honey red tea in tea bags, 30 bags of 4 g, for 550 Taiwan dollars, or 500 with a discount (September 2026). It sells it under the name “瑞穗蜜香紅茶”, not “天鶴茶”.
- How to avoid counterfeits:
- Goods under the mark carry a security sticker, and each farm has its own number in the mark’s system (2016 report).
- The word “蜜香” alone proves nothing: according to the same 2016 note, honey red tea is also made in Shiding, Pinglin, Sanxia and on Alishan.
- The absence of the mark by itself says little: according to the 2020 review, the mark is hardly used.
11. Interesting Facts
- The name “天鶴茶” is two decades older than honey tea: it was given in 1979, when there was no honey tea yet.
- According to the portal, of the nine Tropic of Cancer markers in the world, three stand in Taiwan, two of them in Hualien, and one on the Wuhe Plateau.
12. Comparison with Other Taiwanese Teas
- Taiwanese Mi Xiang Hong Cha (臺灣蜜香紅茶): Honey red tea as a category for all of Taiwan; Ruisui is one of its areas.
- Mingjian Mi Xiang Hong Cha (名間蜜香紅茶): Honey red tea of Mingjian Township in Nantou County — an example showing that “honey” does not mean “from Ruisui”.
- Dongfang Meiren (東方美人): An oolong whose aroma is also born of leaf damaged by the leafhopper.
- Hong Yu (臺茶18號紅玉): A red tea which, according to the portal, is also produced in Wuhe.
- Nantoushi Qingshan Cha (南投市青山茶): Another Taiwanese mark, but a certification mark held by the city administration, not an association’s collective mark.
In Conclusion:
Ruìsuì Tiānhè chá is a name overtaken by its own product: the Wuhe area, which received it in 1979, became famous for honey red tea, and the 2009 collective mark is hardly used. Behind the name stand the red, iron-rich soils of a river terrace on the Tropic of Cancer, gardens kept free of chemicals for the sake of the leafhopper, and spring oolong with pomelo flowers.