Táiwān zhūchá

Taiwan Zhucha (Táiwān zhūchá, 臺灣珠茶) is a pan-fired green tea of the 珠茶 (zhūchá, “pearl tea”; known in the Western market as gunpowder) category, rolled into tight pellets, which was made in Taiwan for export from the late 1940s onward. According to an entry in the Taiwan National Cultural Memory Database (國家文化記憶庫), the method for making 珠茶 was brought to the island by Shanghai merchants in 1948, and the tea soon became one of the main items of Taiwan’s export trade. In the 1950s to 1970s, according to the same entry, Taiwan was one of the main exporters of 珠茶, but by the mid-1970s exports had almost ceased owing to high production costs and competition from mainland China. The main market for the island’s green tea in the early 1950s was North Africa. Under the name “Formosa Gunpowder,” Taiwanese green tea in pellet form is described in a Russian popular book about tea, but this name does not appear in the Taiwanese documents examined. The cultivar, the collection areas, the processing regimes, and the taste are unknown from primary sources, and it is not established whether Taiwanese 珠茶 is still made today, so this article is mainly historical.

1. Classification and Origin

• Type: Green tea (綠茶, lǜchá) with pan-fired fixation — 炒菁 (chǎoqīng). A Taiwanese entry directly defines 珠茶 as “pan-fired green tea” (炒菁的綠茶) made from leaf rolled into small pearls.
• Category: 珠茶 is a technological category of green tea in pellet form. It also includes the Zhejiang Pingshui Zhucha (平水珠茶, Píngshuǐ zhūchá): the category is the same, but the regions are different, so the Taiwanese tea is neither a variety nor a synonym of Pingshui tea. In the PRC, 珠茶 is defined by the recommended standard GB/T 14456.4-2016 “Green tea. Part 4: Zhucha”: it is a finished tea made from “round pan-fired” green tea (圆炒青绿茶, yuán chǎoqīng lǜchá), processed by sifting, winnowing, shaping, sorting, and blending. This standard does not regulate Taiwanese products, and the sources examined do not state by what rules Taiwanese 珠茶 was graded.
• International name: Gunpowder, gunpowder tea, is the Western name for the 珠茶 category; the PRC standard also uses this term for it.
• Origin: Taiwan. A documented sample from the Fuyuan factory in Longtan (龍潭福源茶廠, Lóngtán Fúyuán cháchǎng), produced in the early 1960s, is known. According to a scholarly article from 2021, after a successful trial in 1948, 12 factories making green tea by the Chinese method appeared in the Hsinchu (新竹, Xīnzhú) and Taoyuan (桃園, Táoyuán) area; the article does not specify what shape this tea had. The cultural database entry does not state to which county or city Longtan belongs.
• Period: According to Taiwanese sources, the production method was brought in 1948; according to a table in a 1953 report, the island’s postwar green tea exports began in 1949; by the mid-1970s, according to the cultural database entry, 珠茶 was almost no longer exported. Whether production continues today has not been established.
• Geographic coordinates: The sources give neither coordinates nor boundaries of the production zone; only the places named above are known.

2. History and Cultural Significance

• History:
  • Before 1949. According to a 1953 report by the Sino-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction (JCRR), the main market for green tea outside producing countries was North Africa, and before 1949 it was largely occupied by mainland green tea. The same report states that before 1949 green tea was not made in Taiwan. A Taiwanese tea vendor, by contrast, writes of green tea in the Japanese period (1895–1945), and this encyclopedia’s article “Taiwanese Sencha” speaks of steaming during the colonial years. For 珠茶 the discrepancy is not central: according to a Taiwanese entry, the method for making it was brought only in 1948.
  • 1948. According to the cultural database entry, the method for making 珠茶 was brought to the island by Shanghai merchants, and the tea soon became one of the main items of export (in the entry: 外銷之主力, wàixiāo zhī zhǔlì). An article on a Taiwanese agricultural portal (the thematic section is run by the tea improvement station 茶及飲料作物改良場) relates that a group of Shanghai tea merchants took up pan-fired green tea on the island and sold it successfully to North Africa. A scholarly article from 2021 names as the initiator the foreign trading firm 協和洋行 (Xiéhé yángháng): it opened a branch in Taiwan and invited Chinese masters to try making green tea, and after a successful trial set up 12 factories in the Hsinchu and Taoyuan area. The versions do not exclude one another. A Taiwanese tea vendor writes that in 1948 the methods for both Chun Mee and Gunpowder were brought from the mainland, and the Taiwanese publication foodNEXT (2016) states that Shanghai tea merchants gave impetus to 珠茶 and 眉茶 (méichá), which became a new main export item.
  • 1949–1952. According to a table in the JCRR report, Taiwan’s green tea exports amounted to 1,197 t in 1949, 640 t in 1950, 2,882 t in 1951, and 6,150 t in 1952; in 1946–1948 no green tea appears in exports. In 1952 green tea predominated in exports for the first time — 6,150 out of 9,479 t. The report explains the shift by the ratio of price to production cost; in that year North African buyers offered on average more than 0.40 US dollars per pound. The statistics do not divide green tea into 珠茶 and 眉茶, so the share of 珠茶 is unknown.
  • Quality of the early years. The author of the JCRR report wrote that in 1949–1950 local factories found it difficult to achieve the crystal-clear green liquor and natural aroma of the best mainland tea. In 1951–1952 the technology was markedly improved, and “in a short four years” Taiwanese green tea gained “a definite name and place” in the North African market. At the same time, according to the same report, its quality in 1953 was still considered lower than that of the best mainland tea.
  • 1950s–1970s. According to the cultural database entry, in these decades Taiwan was one of the main exporters of 珠茶. A scholarly article from 2021 writes that after 1961 green tea became the main item of Taiwan’s tea exports — more than 50% of shipments. In 1969, according to the history of the industry association 台灣區製茶工業同業公會, it helped more than twenty green tea producers establish the “China Green Tea United Export Corporation”, a company that the authorities entrusted with sales of green tea to North Africa and Hong Kong.
  • Early 1960s. At the Fuyuan factory in Longtan a 珠茶 was produced that in 1988 was received at the factory by a person who later provided its photograph to the cultural database. The compiler of the entry judged the quality of the sample as “quite high,” not inferior to contemporary high-grade 珠茶 on the world market. This is an opinion about one sample, not a characterization of the style.
  • Decline. According to the cultural database entry, owing to high production costs and competition from mainland China, 珠茶 was almost no longer exported by the mid-1970s. An article on the agricultural portal adds that after setbacks in North Africa, Taiwanese green tea exports were reoriented toward Japan, and that from the 1970s they declined year by year. The article does not specify what tea went to Japan; the island’s steamed green tea is discussed in the article “Taiwanese Sencha.”
  • 1980. The association handled an urgent purchase for Libya — 250 t of green tea 珍眉 (zhēnméi) in small packages of half a kilogram and a kilogram; this belongs to the 眉茶 line, not to 珠茶. According to another cultural database entry, until 1980 tea remained an important Taiwanese export product and went to Japan, North Africa, the United States, Europe, and Southeast Asia.
  • Now. In a 2024 teaching material of the station 茶及飲料作物改良場, Taiwanese green tea is represented by steamed 煎茶 (jiānchá) and the pan-fired 碧螺春 (bìluóchūn) and 龍井 (lóngjǐng) from the Sanxia district (三峽區, Sānxiá qū) of New Taipei City; 珠茶 is not mentioned there. This does not prove that 珠茶 is no longer made in Taiwan: whether it is made today is not established by the sources examined.
• Name:
  • 臺灣 (Táiwān) — Taiwan.
  • 珠茶 (zhūchá) — “pearl tea.” According to the Taiwanese entry, the tea is compact, heavy, and resembles small pearls, hence the name. The same entry says that the full name of the category is 平水珠茶 and that it is made in the Shaoxing area of Zhejiang Province; the Taiwanese tea does not thereby become Pingshui tea.
  • 臺灣珠茶 — in the cultural database entry this is a descriptive phrase (“the quality of Taiwanese 珠茶 is quite high”), not an official name. The toned reading of the whole name is dictionary-based: the sources give it in Chinese characters, and the pinyin zhū chá is provided only for 珠茶.
  • Gunpowder — the Western name for 珠茶. Versions of its origin differ. The Taiwanese entry writes that to Western people 珠茶 darkened by storage recalled powder for shotguns. The article “Pingshui Zhucha” in this encyclopedia speaks of a double association — with the appearance of the granules and with a “burnt” nuance of taste. Western retail retells a legend about a young English clerk to whom the pellets looked like gunpowder. None of the versions has been verified against primary sources.
  • Formosa Gunpowder, “Formosa Poroh” — this is how Taiwanese green tea in pellets is named in the Russian popular book by Yu. G. Ivanov, Encyclopedia of Tea; the name also appears in Western retail. The word “Formosa” is an old trade designation for Taiwanese tea: according to the cultural database entry, in 1869 Taiwanese oolong began to be sold directly to the United States, promoted under the name Formosa Tea. That Formosa Gunpowder designates specifically Taiwanese 珠茶 is not confirmed by primary sources: the name does not appear in the Taiwanese documents examined, and the origin of the tea now sold under it has not been verified.
  • “Porokh” — in V. M. Semenov’s book Invitation to Tea, green tea “porokh” is named among Taiwan’s products together with oolong and, in limited quantities, pouchong.
• Cultural significance: Taiwanese 珠茶 is part of the export chapter of Taiwanese tea history. Within a few years at the turn of the 1950s the island’s green tea — in the 1953 report it is not divided by shape — overtook black tea in exports, and the North African market, previously occupied by mainland tea, accepted Taiwanese tea. The photograph of a sample from the Longtan factory entered the national cultural database as evidence of this production.

3. Botanical Description and Raw Material

• Variety / Cultivar: The tea plant Camellia sinensis; specific varieties are not named in the sources examined. The leaf from which the green tea factories of the 1950s to 1970s were supplied is unknown.
• Harvest: The sources do not state the seasons or timing of the harvest for Taiwanese 珠茶.
• Plucking standard: No data. In the mainland standard, the raw material for 珠茶 is the semifinished product of “round pan-fired” green tea (圆炒青, yuán chǎoqīng); it is unknown whether such a rule was applied in Taiwan.
• Raw material requirements: Unknown.

4. Terroir and Cultivation Features

• Region: The sources name two places. The first is the Hsinchu and Taoyuan area, where after 1948, according to a scholarly article from 2021, 12 green tea factories operated. The second is Longtan, where a known sample of 珠茶 was produced. The sources do not say where the factories obtained their leaf.
• Climate: There are no data on the climate of the production areas in the sources examined.
• Elevation: No data.
• Soils: No data.

5. Production Technology

There are no Taiwanese processing regimes in the sources examined. All that is known is that in 1948 the mainland method — a scholarly article from 2021 speaks of green tea production “by the Chinese method” — was brought to the island, that 珠茶 is a pan-fired green tea rolled into pellets, and that in 1949–1950 local factories found it difficult to achieve a clear green liquor, while in 1951–1952 the technology was markedly improved. Which stages were improved is not stated in the portions of the JCRR report examined.

Below is a general scheme, as for most green teas in pellet form, rather than a description of Taiwanese 珠茶 specifically:

1. Fixation (杀青, shāqīng): Heating in a pan deactivates the leaf enzymes, which is why green tea does not oxidize. For 珠茶 this is heat, not steam.
2. Rolling (揉捻, róuniǎn): The leaf is rolled, tearing the cells and setting the shape.
3. Tumbling and drying in the pan (炒干, chǎogān): The leaf is tumbled and dried for a long time until it curls into a compact pellet.
4. Refining (精制, jīngzhì): According to the mainland standard, finished 珠茶 is obtained from the semifinished product by sifting (筛分, shāifēn), winnowing (风选, fēngxuǎn), shaping (整形, zhěngxíng), sorting (拣剔, jiǎntī), and blending (拼配, pīnpèi).

6. Organoleptic Characteristics

The organoleptics of Taiwanese 珠茶 are unknown from primary sources. The Taiwanese entry describes 珠茶 in general and gives only a quality assessment for the Longtan sample; a Russian popular book describes “Formosa Gunpowder” without indicating a batch or year. Below is what is available, with its provenance indicated.

• Dry leaf appearance: According to the Taiwanese entry on 珠茶 in general — compact, heavy pellets resembling small pearls; freshly made tea is grayish-green (灰白綠色, huībái lǜsè), darkening to black in storage. Ivanov’s book also speaks of small pellets.
• Dry leaf aroma: No descriptions.
• Liquor aroma: No descriptions. The JCRR report only noted that in 1949–1950 local factories found it difficult to give green tea the natural aroma of the best mainland tea; this is an assessment of the island’s green tea in general.
• Taste: No descriptions in the sources examined.
• Liquor color: According to Ivanov’s book — amber; this is a description of an unknown batch. The JCRR report names the “crystal-clear green liquor” of the best mainland tea as the model that the island’s factories found difficult to achieve in 1949–1950.
• Wet leaf (brewed leaf): No descriptions. According to Ivanov’s book, the pellets “explode, as it were,” that is, unfurl, when boiling water is poured over them.

7. Chemical Composition

There are no verified data on the composition of Taiwanese 珠茶. As in most green teas, catechins predominate among the polyphenols; there are also amino acids, including L-theanine, and caffeine. Their proportions in Taiwanese 珠茶 have not been measured.

8. Brewing

There are no data on brewing Taiwanese 珠茶. Ivanov’s book writes that “Formosa Gunpowder” is widely used for mint tea, as an afternoon tea, and as an iced refreshing drink; primary sources do not say this — they only name North Africa as the main market for Taiwanese green tea in the early 1950s. Below is the practice, as for most green teas in pellet form.

• Water temperature: 80–85 °C.
• Amount of tea: About 3 g per 150 ml. The pellets are heavy and unfurl considerably during brewing, so by volume one usually takes less dry tea than it seems.
• Teaware: A gaiwan (蓋碗, gàiwǎn) or a glass cup.
• Process:
  1. Warm the teaware with hot water.
  2. Add the tea.
  3. Pour water over the leaf and immediately pour it off: a short rinse helps the compact pellets begin to open.
  4. The first infusion — about a minute; the pellets unfurl gradually.
  5. Pour off the infusion completely, leaving no leaf in the water.
  6. Subsequent infusions — with gradually increasing time; how many infusions Taiwanese 珠茶 can withstand is not stated in the sources.

9. Storage

There are no data on storing this tea specifically. The Taiwanese entry notes that 珠茶 darkens in storage — fresh grayish-green tea becomes black. As for most green teas: in airtight packaging, in a refrigerator at 0–5 °C, away from light, moisture, and foreign odors; best consumed within a year.

10. Price and Counterfeits

There are no contemporary prices for Taiwanese 珠茶 in the sources examined. A historical reference point is given by the JCRR report: in 1952 North African buyers offered on average more than 0.40 US dollars per pound for Taiwanese green tea.

• How to avoid counterfeits:
  • The name Formosa Gunpowder on a package does not prove Taiwanese origin: the connection of this name with Taiwanese 珠茶 is not confirmed, and the origin of the retail tea sold under it has not been verified. Ask the seller where and by whom the tea was made.
  • Do not confuse it with Pingshui Zhucha (平水珠茶): the category is the same, but that is a Zhejiang tea.
  • The pellet shape indicates the 珠茶 category, not the place of production.
  • A dark color of the pellets is not in itself a sign of counterfeit: according to the Taiwanese entry, 珠茶 darkens in storage. But it may mean that the batch has lain for a long time.
  • 眉茶 and 珍眉 are another export line of green tea that was also made in Taiwan; this is not 珠茶.

11. Interesting Facts

• Green tea entered Taiwan’s export trade swiftly: in 1946–1948 it was absent from exports, while in 1952 it accounted for 6,150 out of 9,479 t — more than half.
• The 1953 JCRR report does not name the shape of the green tea — neither 珠茶 nor gunpowder: its tables do not separate “pearl” tea from “eyebrow” tea 眉茶.
• The Taiwanese entry on the Longtan sample reminds the reader that the full name of the category is 平水珠茶, from Zhejiang’s Pingshui.
• The sample produced in Longtan in the early 1960s was still at the factory in 1988: a person who later provided the photograph for the cultural database received it there.
• Sources differ about who brought the method of making pan-fired green tea to the island: the Taiwanese entry and an article on the agricultural portal say Shanghai merchants, while a scholarly article from 2021 says the foreign firm 協和洋行 with Chinese masters.

12. Comparison with Other Green Teas

• Pingshui Zhucha (平水珠茶, Píngshuǐ zhūchá): The same 珠茶 category from Zhejiang; according to the Taiwanese entry, 平水珠茶 is the full name of the category. Taiwanese 珠茶 is the product of another region, not a synonym.
• Meicha (眉茶, méichá) and Zhen Mei (珍眉, zhēnméi): Another export line of pan-fired green tea. It was also made in Taiwan — in 1980 珍眉 was supplied to Libya; in the early 1950s statistics, Taiwanese 眉茶 and 珠茶 are not separated.
• Sanxia Bi Luo Chun (三峽碧螺春, Sānxiá bìluóchūn) and Longjing from Sanxia (龍井茶, lóngjǐng chá): Contemporary Taiwanese pan-fired green teas with which the station 茶及飲料作物改良場 represented Taiwanese green tea in 2024.
• Taiwanese Sencha (臺灣煎茶, Táiwān jiānchá): A steamed (蒸菁, zhēngqīng) green tea — a different fixation technology.

In conclusion:

Taiwanese Zhucha is above all a chapter in the island’s export history. The mainland category 珠茶 came to Taiwan, according to the cultural database entry, in 1948, together with the export production of pan-fired green tea; within a few years the island’s green tea took a place in the North African market, and exports of 珠茶 almost ceased by the mid-1970s owing to high production costs and mainland competition. Of the primary sources, only this entry speaks directly of Taiwanese 珠茶, with a single described sample from the Longtan factory in the early 1960s; the tables of the 1953 report and the history of the industry association speak of the island’s green tea in general.

The class and rapid growth of the island’s green tea exports in the early 1950s are confirmed. The time of 珠茶’s appearance in Taiwan and the decline of its exports are known from the cultural database entry, while sources differ about who brought the method. Open questions remain the cultivar, the collection areas, the processing regimes, the taste, the share of 珠茶 in exports, and present-day production, and the connection of the name Formosa Gunpowder with Taiwanese 珠茶 remains a supposition that Taiwanese documents do not yet confirm.

Sources

Standards

• GB/T 14456.4-2016

Documents and publications

1. 臺灣龍潭地區生產的「珠茶」 — 國家文化記憶庫 (Taiwan Cultural Memory Bank); 建檔單位 國立台灣工藝研究發展中心 (National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute); 撰寫者 阮素芬; 時間起 2020/11/04; CC BY 3.0 TW
2. Problems of Tea Production in Taiwan (Plant Industry Series No. 2) — Chinese-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction (JCRR), Taipei, July 1953
3. 漫談臺灣老茶(一) — 農業知識入口網 · 茶葉主題館 (農業部; 維護單位：農業部 茶及飲料作物改良場); 文/ 吳聲舜; 發布日期 105/01/05 (2016-01-05), 更新日期 113/10/17 (2024-10-17)
4. 臺灣茶葉進出口脈絡 — 國家文化記憶庫; 建檔單位 國立台灣工藝研究發展中心; 撰寫者/創作者 綠地生態系統服務研究室; 登入日期 2020/06/25; CC BY 3.0 TW
5. 臺灣茶葉產業結構與經營模式的轉變 (The Transition of Tea Industry Structure and the Business Model in Taiwan) — 北商學報 (Journal of National Taipei University of Business) 第37期, 民國110年1月 (2021-01), 頁1–25; 何志峰、林浩鉅、何青儒
6. 公會沿革 — 台灣區製茶工業同業公會 (Taiwan Tea Manufacturers' Association)
7. 臺灣特色茶 (國產農漁畜產品教材，2024.9出版) — 編撰單位：農業部茶及飲料作物改良場
8. 全国标准信息公共服务平台 — 国家市场监督管理总局 / 国家标准化管理委员会 (std.samr.gov.cn)
9. Preparation of catechin extracts and nanoemulsions from green tea leaf waste and their inhibition effect on prostate cancer cell PC-3 — International Journal of Nanomedicine 11 (2016) 1907–1926; DOI 10.2147/IJN.S103759; PMID 27226712; Tsai Y.-J., Chen B.-H. (Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan); CC BY-NC 3.0
10. History of Formosa Green Tea (Green Tea History) — Mantra Tea Taiwan
11. 台灣茶業百年史 塑造飲茶生活文化 — 食力 foodNEXT; 撰文 黃齡誼; 2016/06/08
12. 臺灣茶為何又如何本土？從內銷轉向與高山化談起 — 聯合新聞網 鳴人堂; 練聿修; 23 Jan, 2017
13. 貿易戰爭 06》台灣茶出口籠罩洗產地疑雲，應加強來源國標示，避免貿易障礙 — 上下游 News&Market; 孫維揚、林怡均; 2025-04-11
14. Gunpowder tea — Wikipedia (en)
15. Formosa Gunpowder Green — Pickwick & Cherry (Teaching Kitchen & Occasional Bakery)

Full list — on the Sources page