Nature Partners Time Bank · Foxconn Volunteer Team
Pinglin, upstream of the Feitsui Reservoir. One trail, one shy mongoose, two hundred pairs of hands — grown-ups, and the smallest nature partners of all.
坪林，翡翠水庫的上游。一條步道、一隻害羞的食蟹獴，還有一雙一雙的手——大人的，還有最小的自然伙伴的。
What this day really was
It was a whole system, walked end to end. Pinglin sits in the catchment that fills the Feitsui Reservoir — the water a few million people in Taipei drink. Because of that, this valley has been protected for decades: little development, forest left standing, streams left clean. So the forest here is not scenery. It is infrastructure with leaves on it.
We started at a factory gate in Tucheng and ended in a tea row on a slope, which is another way of saying we travelled from the tap back to the source. In between we pulled vines by hand, leaned in together over a single plant, climbed a lot of mossy steps, and put our hands into warm tea leaves.
Forest keeps the water. Water keeps the leaf. The leaf keeps the village. And the village keeps the forest.
其實我們是把一整個系統，用腳走了一遍。坪林位在翡翠水庫的集水區上游——台北幾百萬人喝的水，很大一部分從這裡開始。正因為如此，這片山谷被長期保護：開發少、森林完整、溪水乾淨。所以這裡的森林不是風景，它是一座長著葉子的基礎設施。
我們從土城頂埔的廠門出發，最後停在山坡上的一畦茶樹之間——換句話說，我們是從水龍頭，一路走回源頭。中間我們用手把纏繞的藤蔓拔起來、十幾顆頭湊成一圈看清楚一株植物、爬了很多長滿青苔的石階，也把手放進溫熱的茶葉裡。
森林守著水，水守著葉，葉守著村子，村子再守回森林。
The route · 08:30 → 17:00 · tap the markers
Each marker holds something the timetable didn't have room for.
每一個點裡，都放著時間表寫不下的那些事。
The day begins where the working day usually begins: a factory gate, a sign-in sheet, red vests handed out, and the children counted twice. Then thirty kilometres of road that quietly climb from city to catchment.
Worth knowing: you are not travelling to nature. You are travelling upstream of your own tap.
這一天，從上班的地方開始：廠門口、簽到表、發背心，小朋友點名要點兩次。接著是三十公里的路，安靜地從城市爬進集水區。
值得記住：我們不是「去」大自然，我們是往自己家水龍頭的上游走。
🚌 09:00–09:30 · bus to the Kova / Wangwang campus🚌 09:00–09:30 · 乘車前往渴望園區
Think of it as a visitor centre: the last flat floor before the mountain. Groups are split, and everyone gets a radio guide receiver — which is the quiet detail we like most. Forty people can hear the guide without anyone shouting over the stream, and the forest stays as loud as it was before we arrived.
可以把它想成國家公園的遊客中心：上山前最後一塊平地。分好組、發下導覽機——這是我們最喜歡的一個小細節。四十個人都聽得到解說，卻沒有人需要蓋過溪聲；森林還是我們來之前的那個音量。
Steps, moss, tree ferns tall enough to be umbrellas, and a stream running beside you the whole way. The theme animal is the crab-eating mongoose (Urva urva) — native to Taiwan, long-bodied, long-tailed, somewhere between a weasel and a small raccoon in the imagination. It lives along streams and eats crabs, fish, amphibians and insects.
Which makes it a signal species. Dirty water → fewer crabs → no mongoose. If it is here, the whole water column beneath it is working. We didn't see one. That is completely normal — and looking is still the point.
The hands-on part: this is not a stroll. Sections of the trail edge need clearing by hand — vines pulled with their roots, cut stems bagged and carried out rather than dropped (some of them re-root where they fall). Somewhere in here the real learning happens: the group stops, leans over one plant, and argues gently about what it is.
石階、青苔、高得像雨傘的樹蕨，還有一路陪著你的溪水。主題動物是食蟹獴（Urva urva）——台灣原生，身體細長、尾巴長長的，想像起來像黃鼠狼和小浣熊之間的某種生物。牠住在溪流旁，吃螃蟹、魚、兩棲類和昆蟲。
所以牠是一個指標物種。水變髒 → 螃蟹變少 → 食蟹獴就不見了。牠在，代表牠腳下整條水系都還運作正常。這天我們沒有看到牠。這非常正常——但「去找」本身就是重點。
要動手的部分：這不是郊遊。步道兩側有些地方需要以手作方式維護——藤蔓要連根請下來，拔下的莖葉要裝袋帶走，不能隨手丟（有些落地就會再生根）。真正的學習常常發生在這裡：一群人停下來，圍著一株植物，客客氣氣地爭論它到底是誰。
🚌 11:15–11:30 · short ride down to lunch🚌 11:15–11:30 · 短程乘車，下山吃飯
A local kitchen that leans on Pinglin tea, mountain vegetables and nearby farms. This is the part of the chain people forget to look at: a protected watershed also has to feed the families who live in it. Good question for the table — where did this dish come from, and how far?
在地的廚房，靠的是坪林的茶、山產和附近農家。這是這條鏈子裡最常被忽略的一段：被保護的集水區，也得養活住在裡面的人。餐桌上的好問題——這道菜從哪裡來？走了多遠？
🚌 12:30–13:00 · on to the tea factory🚌 12:30–13:00 · 前往文新製茶廠
Pinglin is a heartland of Wenshan Baozhong tea — lightly oxidised, greener and more floral than a classic oolong, often carrying orchid, osmanthus and a clean sweetness. You smell it before anyone explains it.
Then everyone stands at a bamboo tray and rolls. Children get a picture book and a blending kit — eight little pots of flowers and herbs, one spoon, one paper teabag, and complete creative freedom over the result. Table 11 will remember Table 11's recipe forever.
The chain in one line: forest → rainfall → clean water → tea bush → your hands → this cup.
坪林是文山包種茶的重要產區——發酵較輕，比典型烏龍更綠、更香，常帶著蘭花香、桂花香和一種乾淨的清甜。還沒有人開始解說，你就先聞到了。
然後大家站到竹篩前開始揉茶。小朋友有繪本，也有調茶包：八個小盒的花草、一支小匙、一個紙茶包，配方完全自由。第11桌會永遠記得第11桌的配方。
一句話的鏈路：森林 → 降雨 → 乾淨的水 → 茶樹 → 你的手 → 這一杯。
🚌 15:00–15:15 · up to the tea garden🚌 15:00–15:15 · 前往文新茶園
Most people only ever meet tea in a cup. Here you meet it on a hillside: rows following the contour, higher ground, frequent cloud and mist, high humidity, soil that drains fast. That combination is a large part of the aroma.
Zoom out and it gets interesting. The garden is not a field on its own — it is stitched between forest, valley and stream. A forest–tea–water mosaic. At landscape scale, the forest edge is what keeps the tea's water clean, and the tea is what keeps the community here to defend the forest.
多數人只在杯子裡見過茶。在這裡，你在山坡上見到它：順著等高線的茶行、較高的海拔、常有的雲霧、高濕度、排水良好的土壤。香氣有很大一部分，就來自這個組合。
把鏡頭拉遠，才有意思。茶園不是一塊獨立的農地，它鑲嵌在森林、山谷與溪流之間——一個森林–茶園–水系鑲嵌地景。在地景尺度上，是森林邊界守住了茶的乾淨水源，也是茶留住了願意守護森林的社區。
The best hour for notes, honestly. Write down the weather, the temperature, what you pulled, what you couldn't name. Next season the same trail will look different, and the only way to see that is to have written this one down.
老實說，這是最適合寫筆記的一小時。記下天氣、溫度、拔了什麼、有哪一株你叫不出名字。下一季，同一條步道會長得不一樣；而唯一能看見那個「不一樣」的方法，就是這一次有寫下來。
08:30 gather. 09:00 leave on time. That "on time" is doing a lot of work. 08:30 集合，09:00 準時出發。那三個字「準時」，其實很有份量。
The trail gate · a small game for the walk
You are a bee, or a butterfly, or a bird, or a ladybird — whoever turns up. Every push climbs a few more steps and shows you one plant that really does grow along this kind of northern-Taiwan stream trail. Some are native. Some arrived from somewhere else. Some are look-alikes that fool everybody. Don't conclude — record. Then take it to the notebook below.
你是一隻蜜蜂，或蝴蝶，或小鳥，或瓢蟲——看誰今天來。每推一次門，就多爬幾階，遇見一種真的會長在北台灣這類溪谷步道旁的植物。有的是原生，有的從別的地方來，有的長得很像、騙過所有人。先別下結論，先記錄。然後把它帶到下面的筆記本裡。
Hi — I'm the umbrella over your head.
Guess first: is this a young palm, or a fern the size of a tree?
My fronds shade the stream. Shaded water stays cool, cool water holds oxygen, and oxygen is why there are crabs down there at all.
嗨，我是你頭頂上那把傘。
先猜猜看：這是小棕櫚，還是一棵長成樹那麼大的蕨？
我的葉子替溪水遮蔭。有蔭的水比較涼，涼的水才含得住氧氣——下面那些螃蟹，就是靠這個活著。
Field rule: a photo, a sketch or one honest sentence beats a confident wrong name. 田野守則：一張照片、一張速寫、或一句誠實的描述，都勝過一個很有自信的錯名字。
Your page · fill it in, it's yours
Draw the leaf shape. Edge, tip, how the veins run. Names can come later. 把葉子的形狀畫下來：邊緣、葉尖、葉脈怎麼走。名字，可以晚點再說。
Nothing here is sent anywhere. It stays in your own browser — bring it back next season and compare. 這裡的東西不會被送到任何地方，只留在你自己的瀏覽器裡——下一季再打開來比對。
Morning · forest & stream · 10:00–11:15
Afternoon · tea & hands · 13:00–15:45
Four seasons, one trail · the long record
This team has walked this biodiversity trail season after season, for years. That is the quiet superpower here — not a one-off outing, but a repeated visit by the same people, with children who have been coming long enough to be regulars themselves. If the next team keeps the same slip — date, weather, temperature, what was cleared, what was seen — the seasons start to line up, and the trail begins to tell you things nobody can see in one visit.
這支團隊已經在這條生態多樣性步道上，一季一季地走了很多年。真正厲害的地方就在這裡——不是一次性的活動，而是同一群人反覆回到同一個地方，還有一些小朋友，已經來到變成老班底了。如果下一梯的伙伴也用同一張紀錄卡——日期、天氣、溫度、清了什麼、看到什麼——四季就會被串起來，步道也會開始告訴你，一次造訪絕對看不見的事。
New fronds, frog chorus after rain, first flush tea. Look for: what came back after winter.
新葉、雨後的蛙鳴、春茶。觀察：冬天過後，誰回來了。
Hot, humid, vines at full speed, stream running. Cleared by hand; mongoose not seen.
熱、濕，藤蔓長最快的季節，溪水有流。手作清理；食蟹獴未現身。
Check your socks. Best season to map where the invaders start.
檢查一下你的襪子。最適合標記外來種從哪裡開始的季節。
Less leaf, more shape: erosion, step damage, where water really runs.
葉子少了，結構露出來：沖蝕、階梯損壞、水真正的路徑。
Where this came from · where it can go
It was shared as an Earth Letter, and it is also a recruiting card for the next season: if you have read this far, you already know what the day is like. If you or your team walk this route — or your own local one — make your own station, keep the same field slip, and link back. Then the seasons connect across teams, not just within one.
Read the original Earth Letter它以一封 Earth Letter 的形式被分享出來，同時也是下一季的招募卡：你既然讀到這裡，就已經知道這一天是什麼樣子了。如果你或你的團隊也走這條路線——或走你自己在地的那一條——就做一個自己的 Earth Station，用同一張紀錄卡，然後互相連結。這樣四季就不只在一個團隊裡串起來，而是在團隊與團隊之間串起來。
閱讀原本的 Earth LetterMachine-readable summary · for people and for AI
Sources & further learning
Public, official and open-data sources. Species names, tea terms and watershed facts are best verified species-by-species inside these — that is half the fun.
以下都是公開、官方或開放資料的來源。物種名、茶的名詞、集水區的資料，最好一項一項進去查——那本身就是一半的樂趣。