The Council of Agriculture disclosed the final results of the Top Ten Tea Contest 2007 and held its rewarding ceremony at the afternoon of June 7, 2007. Premier Chang graced the rewarding ceremony with his presence to bestow awards on the winners of Top Ten Tea Contest 2007 in honor of the eminent contribution they made to the technology of growing and producing tea. Premier Chang also called on people in every walk of life to drink as much home-grown tea as possible to promote sustainable development of Taiwan’s tea industry.

Premier Chang indicated in his address that tea-growing enjoys a long-standing history in Taiwan and tea-drinking not only serves to refine and cultivate one’s character but also makes it possible for one to appreciate the art of living and the characteristics of tea culture. Premier Chang went on to note that the places of origin of Taiwan tea have recently been falsely registered in mainland China. After tea producers with the assistance from COA brought up administrative relief to People’s Republic of China, they have won the litigation in four cases of Ali Mountain, Sun-Moon Lake, Pear Mountain and the Spring of Wu-Tribe, and the registrations have been revoked and the places of origin of home-grown tea as trademarks are protected. COA also made efforts to aid in instituting insignias of places of origin lest home-grown tea is counterfeited or faked, and all these measures are to be positively recognized. He took advantage of this opportunity to urge dealers and farmers of tea not to seek short-term gains by selling seedlings of quality Taiwan tea and tea-manufacturing technology to overseas producers for limited profits, which will enable them to manufacture Taiwanese-style Oolong Tea and export it back to Taiwan and will have a negative effect on domestic tea-manufacturing industry.

COA noted that the contestants in Top Ten Tea Contest 2007 will not only be reviewed through sensory appreciation of the tea samples they manufactured but also be judged by the scores of two newly added categories of Tea Farm Management and Tea-Manufacturing Factory Management. After a fierce competition among 25 finalists of contending tea farmers, the results came out: Jen-ting Zen from Oe-mei , Hsinchu County, Zhao-yang Hsieh from San-Hsing , Yilan County, Ching-chang Bai from Ping-lin , Taipei County, Wen-hsuang Huang from San-hsia , Taipei County, Ming-ying Su from Miaoli City, Chuen-lieh Zen from Chu-shan , Nantou County, Chieng-She Li from Ming-chian , Nantou County, Shueng-ching Hsu from Lu-ku , Nantou County, Weng-keng Wang from Mei-shan , Chiayi County and Bu-Kuang Yeh from Juei-suei , Hualien County stand out as prize winners . Premier Chang bestowed Top Ten Tea Awards, a symbol of supreme honor, together with NT$50,000 prizes on the tea farmers one by one. Each of the prize winners made his award-receiving address with much excitement.

Later on, Minister Su of COA rewarded NT$20,000 prizes to the remaining 15 finalists and noted in his address that, in order to advance a well-balanced development of indigenous tea peculiar to one tea-growing area, allow tea grown in different locations and altitudes to have an equal opportunity to vie in the contest and display the characteristics of indigenous tea in each area, COA held Top Ten Tea Contest 2007 not only in the hope of making tea farmers put more emphasis on tea farm management and improve their tea-manufacturing technology but also with an aim to giving our consumers to understand that Taiwan tea is of high quality and safe for drinking.

Minster Su also stressed that, in order to help tea farmers to grow quality and safe tea, in recent years, COA has aggressively pushed for the collaboration between farmers and manufacturers of tea, set up a norm for producing quality tea, assisted in building up traceability system and improved sanitary conditions in tea-manufacturing process so as to produce high quality tea, allowing consumers to make their purchase with much self-assurance and consequently increasing the sales of the tea products.