Taipei Feitsui Reservoir supplies drinking water to more than five million citizens in northern Taiwan. The Feitsui Reservoir Administration and Tea Research and Extension Station have implemented a new pollution control measure for the use of low-phosphorous (low-P) fertilizers to prevent eutrophication. In this study, we compared the quality of the soil, effluent and tea from two test fields. Low-P fertilizer was applied to one of the fields, and regular phosphorous fertilizer (regular-P) was applied to the other. The study period covered spring and winter seasons. The results showed that the investigated soil chemical properties were not influenced by either the low-P or regular-P fertilizers. The effluent quality was influenced by the precondition of the soil, which resulted in a larger average total phosphorous (TP) concentration in the low-P field. However, there was a decreasing trend in P concentration that amounted to approximately half of the average TP concentration in the regular-P field. The growth characteristics and yields were not significantly different between the two fields, but the taste and aroma of the tea from the low-P field was rated as superior to that of the regular-P field.
