Taiwan High Mountain Coffee | Wuhe Terrace | Wuhe Coffee | Hualien Ruinsui Estate Natural

The History of Wuhe Coffee Plantations

The estate sits in "Jialana" village on the Wuhe Terrace of Ruishui Township, Hualien. Jialana is the Amis word "Kalala," meaning "basket", a fitting description of the local topography. The village has about 400 residents, mostly Amis indigenous people, and agriculture is the community's economic mainstay. During the Japanese colonial period, the Japanese national Koda Shoji was ordered by the Governor-General to develop the area. In the 1930s he established a coffee plantation of about 400 hectares here and founded a joint-stock company for export, the most comprehensive coffee production, manufacturing, and sales base in Taiwan during the colonial era.

The Jilin Tea Garden in Jialana village produces about 500 kilograms of coffee annually. The garden was established using old plants dating back to the colonial period, and tea-garden experience is put to work in coffee production. This lot uses fresh beans from the current year, refined through natural processing, with flavor notes of strong fermentation aroma, pine, peach, roasted nuts, raw walnuts, and black tea, and a long-lasting aftertaste.

In Wuhe Township, on the Wuhe Terrace of Hualien, lies the small village of "Jialana." The name comes from the Amis word "Kalala," meaning "basket," which describes the local terrain. About 400 people live here, mostly Amis indigenous people, with agriculture as the primary livelihood. From the colonial period to the present, coffee, pineapple, and tea have been planted here in succession.

The Wuhe Terrace was anciently called "Soba Terrace." "Soba" means wooden board in the Amis language. Legend has it that hundreds of years ago, when the Amis first came here to cultivate, they met a storm and picked up nearby board-shaped objects for shelter, hence the name. Later, in the colonial era, Koda Shoji was ordered by the Governor-General to develop the area, and with help from local gentry such as former provincial legislator Ma Youyue, he established the roughly 400-hectare coffee plantation in the 1930s and founded "Sumita Co., Ltd." to market the coffee to Japan, even supplying it to the Emperor. This was the birthplace of Taiwan's earliest commercialized coffee cultivation.

The Decline and Revival

When the Pacific War broke out, Koda Shoji left Taiwan. After the war, Taiwan coffee lost its largest market, Japan, and Wuhe coffee slid into decades of obscurity. Only when Gukeng coffee rose to fame did Wuhe residents recall this glorious history, return to the fields in search of the old coffee trees, and begin planting again.

Decades-old coffee trees remain vibrant in their natural environment. The Wuhe Terrace is filled with old plants from those years, each seed carrying memories of the colonial era. As residents reinvested in cultivation, Wuhe coffee production grew year by year, but alongside growing recognition came new challenges in production and marketing.

The water on Wuhe Terrace is excellent, the soil fertile, and coffee production quite abundant. Yet most Wuhe coffee farmers rely primarily on their tea gardens for income, with coffee as a side business. Examples range from the Dongsheng Tea Garden that led the planting movement to the Jilin Tea Garden's cooperation with Sen Takasago Coffee. Residents have made all sorts of attempts, from developing tourist coffee farms to establishing brands. But high production costs and differing processing methods from household to household have kept a complete production-and-marketing system from forming. The result: despite Wuhe coffee's fame, actual sales are difficult. Some farmers even skip the harvest to save costs, or sell their beans wholesale to other counties and cities, which market them under other regions' names.

Modern Developments

The Jilin Tea Garden offers a path forward. Its farmer, Mr. Peng Weixiang, is a young tea grower who, through several years of effort, has steadily increased the estate's coffee output and independently developed many different processing methods. Drawing on tea-garden experience, Mr. Peng has invested tea-making equipment into coffee production, from using fermentation rooms for dry fermentation before washing, to applying tea-withering equipment for honey-processed coffee. This not only creates new flavors for Wuhe coffee but also expands capacity, providing small-scale post-processing services for nearby farmers.

The cooperation between Sen Takasago Coffee and the Jilin Tea Garden has built a complete industrial chain for Wuhe coffee, from production to marketing. Previously, Wuhe coffee was limited by its geography and sold mostly as a local specialty. The partnership shortens the distance from growing area to consumer: the Jilin Tea Garden's flexible, distinctive production capabilities combine with Sen Takasago Coffee's roasting quality and marketing channels, then extend to other farmers, raising product value under the quality and image of specialty coffee, and gradually expanding the benefits flowing to Wuhe as one of Taiwan's top coffee regions.

Natural Processing Method

The natural method is one of the oldest ways to process coffee. It is said that since the 11th century, Arabs have used it to post-process coffee fruit. In the natural method, harvested cherries are evenly exposed to sunlight and turned several times a day until dry, with the moisture inside the coffee reaching a set standard; the dry, hard fruit peel is then removed, yielding natural-processed beans with a strong fermentation aroma.

The natural method is extremely labor-intensive, and the loss rate of green beans is high, so prices generally run higher. Since it uses no water, however, it remains popular in water-scarce Middle Eastern and some African origins. Because the entire fermentation happens inside the fruit's own peel, natural coffee shows extremely strong body, fermentation aroma, and sweetness, more pronounced acidity, high flavor complexity, and clearer layers.

Taiwan has more rain and less sunshine than most origins, and labor costs are higher, so natural-processed production is lower here. The natural lots selected by Sen Takasago Coffee all come from farmers with long-term cooperation and a certain scale, so their processes and quality stability are guaranteed. Some of those farmers use tea-making and mushroom-cultivation equipment to assist with natural drying and fermentation, giving Sen Takasago Coffee's natural series a special flavor unlike international beans.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Natural processing is the oldest coffee method and still the most widespread, cherries are dried whole in the sun with the pulp intact, which raises body and fills the cup with ripe-fruit character. FrontStreet Coffee's natural lineup shows the style at its best:

Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry: Natural drying demands days of continuous sunshine, typically 27-30 days of it. Ethiopia's high, dry, water-scarce terrain makes it a natural powerhouse: fully ripe red cherries are spread on raised beds, kept off the ground away from insects, dust, and bacteria, and turned regularly for even drying. A medium-light roast reveals elegant florals and bright acidity plus vivid tropical fruit, full fermentation character, and sweetness.

Natural Huakui: From Sidamo's exceptional high-altitude terroir, a medium-light roast brings light fermentation, florals, citrus, and mango, a denser, more complex cup with honeyed sweetness, cocoa, a trace of spice, thick body, and a long finish.

2013 Yunnan Natural Typica: From FrontStreet Coffee's own estate, where the dry season's sunny days suit natural drying. The long sun-bath highlights nutty tones in a balanced, sweet cup, slightly sweeter than the washed lot, with berry-like acidity, dried apricot and brown sugar notes, and a light tea finish.

Brazil Queen Estate: Brazil favors pulped natural, but Queen Estate dries whole cherries on raised racks, turning them constantly so every cherry meets the sun, then finishes with mechanical drying to target moisture. The stable, low-moisture beans brew into sugarcane-juice sweetness, black tea, gentle fruit sweetness, clear nut flavors, soft balanced acidity, faint clean bitterness, and rich chocolate.

Colombia Sidra Double Anaerobic Natural: A step beyond ordinary naturals, whole cherries ferment twice in sealed tanks injected with carbon dioxide (carbonic maceration), slowing sugar breakdown and pH drop in the mucilage for higher sweetness, more complex flavor, and a silky texture. Expect dense tropical fruit: passion fruit, apricot, dried fruit, grape, and an almond-like finish.