Yuchi Tea Research Station
The station began in 1936 as the Yuchi Black Tea Experiment Branch of the Government-General of Taiwan’s Central Research Institute, and later added an experimental black-tea factory; the grounds still keep the factory and Japanese-style dormitories built of cypress. Its official name today is the Central Branch of the Tea and Beverage Research Station, Ministry of Agriculture, but locals still call it the Yuchi station.
Kokichiro Arai became branch director in 1941. After the war he handed the post to Chen Wei-zhen, sent his family home to Japan and stayed on in Taiwan to continue his black-tea research; he died of malaria in 1946, aged 42. In 1949 Chen raised a memorial to him at a bend in the tea garden below the station; the white memorial pavilion still stands.
Hong Yun is TTES No. 21, bred by the Tea Research and Extension Station. From the experiment branch to today, the work here has always been the same: making Taiwan’s black tea better.
