January 24th ,2016, many Taiwanese experienced a unexpected heavy snow. Though high mountain areas snow almost every winter, low altitude areas have never been under 0 ℃ (about 32 degree in Fahrenheit) in almost 30 years. Most tea farms in the north of Taiwan were covered by snow.

Low temperature may damage tea trees. The water in tea leaves will become ice and squeeze out of the leaves when temperatures below 0 ℃ are reached. Damaged tea leaves will deteriorate the quality and quantity of the final products. For some tea farmers who put a lot of effort into early-spring teas, snow damage hurts their profit significantly, because early-spring teas are usually more expensive and popular gifts for Chinese New Year.

Sanne Tea’s partner tea farms were also covered by snow. The farmer told us that they haven’t had such a severe situation before. Some garden fruits and vegetables have been damaged by unexpected cold weather. They will check the tea trees after the snow has melted to see how much damage was done. We all believe, however, that the tea trees will remain fine through the cold snap. Thanks to the natural farming methods, the tea trees of our partner farms are stronger than the average farm’s tea trees.

Keeping our fingers crossed!