| dc.description.abstract | Marketing or distribution channel of tea market in the north Taiwan has been controlled by foreign companies and some tea dealers, and it’s the form of Taiwan tea industrial structure. Market transformation or emergence of new production of tea makes hakka tea maker have a new opportunity to change their producer. Aspecially in situation of some resources and limit condition, they can found tea producer organization, which is distinct from Taipei organization of tea dealers.
Under historical process of evolution for northern Taiwanese tea, there used to be division of labor models among different ethnic clans for vertical relationship of the entire production, manufacturing, and sale, and that is production and manufacturing will be concentrated at Hakka area. As for center of sale market, it has mainly concentrated among Fukienese tea merchants at Dadaocheng. As for tea manufacturer of diverse ethnic groups at Hakka area, they include tea manufacturing factory and tea farmer, and diverse extent and scope of ethnic resources and network will be exploited for utility at different periods of times. Though one cannot observe rather prominent ethnic factors among tea manufacturing factories today, the illustration of ethnic factor is taken to conduct demarcation from tea merchants in Taipei. Therefore, similar ethnic identity and social status are combined as to consider them as “tea makers,” under permissible terms they can be united together to demonstrate the power of organization.
In addition, this article would also muse of the case for northern tea industry to once again review the “conservative” feature of economy among ethnic Hakka group, though which is not an inborn quality. However, such economic behavior and characteristic developed these Hakka tea makers under limited resources and environment as viewed from the process of tea history in Taiwan should have well reflected their conservative personality of management as well as their remote status within social hierarchy.
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