Story

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Taiwan, a beautiful island also known as Formosa, is an island with 70% high mountains. The weather and environment is very suitable for high mountain tea. Hence, the island is known for very good quality tea in Asia. This is also where Leafhopper tea comes from! 

Leafhopper is a special kind of “bug-bitten” tea. Its natural honey-like aroma has a unique scientific background. It all starts with the tiny bug called little green leafhopper. In Taiwan, they’re called “Jacobiasca formosana”. For most crops, insect damage is a bad thing—both for yield and quality. With tea, however, we have this unique case of the “bug-bitten” teas. These tiny green insects, about 3mm long at full size, bite into young tea leaves which activate tea plants’ defense mechanism. They defend by releasing special natural scent, which happens to smell nice for human. The leaves were originally considered bad and were mostly thrown away until a farmer accidentally found out that those tea leaves can surprisingly make a very tasty cup of tea! 

Little green leafhoppers like to live in hot and humid mountains and are only active in summer months, around May to July. In fact, the benefits that the leafhopper induces to the tea have steered tea farmers away from using pesticides. Hence, the little bugs are organic symbols themselves! In 2019, Leafhopper® was founded by Huei-Lin Hung in her second home town Hamburg. Her goal is to introduce the very unique bug-bitten tea to Germany and Europe, so that people can enjoy and appreciate high quality tea directly from farmers and their families, and also get to know her beautiful home town *Taiwan*!