Sun Moon Lake Black Tea Eggs 日月潭红茶蛋

Sun Moon Lake Black Tea Eggs (日月潭红茶蛋) are tea eggs sold at Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) in Yuchi Township (魚池鄉), Nantou County (南投縣), Taiwan, and braised with the local black tea. The Tourism Administration's description of Xuanguang Pier (玄光碼頭), one of the lake's four main piers, below Xuanguang Temple (玄光寺), notes a well-known 'Granny's tea eggs' (阿婆茶葉蛋) stall beside the pier, whose salty, well-flavoured eggs draw crowds of visitors.

How it is made

In 2022 EBC News (東森新聞) described Jinpen Grandma's Mushroom Tea Eggs (金盆阿嬤香菇茶葉蛋) as a well-known Sun Moon Lake food. What set them apart from ordinary tea eggs was that Sun Moon Lake black tea and mushrooms from Yuchi (魚池香菇) went into the braising liquid, and the eggs were braised three times so that the flavour soaked in. Zou Jinpen (鄒金盆), the grandmother of the name, died in September 2022 at the age of 93.

Ingredients

The tea comes from a large-leaf variety that Arai Kōkichirō (新井耕吉郎), a technician at the Central Research Institute during Japanese rule, brought from Assam in India. Yuchi Township, with a suitable average temperature and steady humidity, became the centre of its production, and in 1978 the Nantou County magistrate Liu Yuyou (劉裕猷) gave it the name Sun Moon Lake black tea. It is counted among Taiwan's ten famous teas. Varieties grown include Assam and Taiwan Tea No. 7, No. 8 and No. 18.