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When the early settlers arrived in Pingxi, they had no idea that beneath their feet lay a wealth of black gold. They lived by growing rice and sweet potatoes for food, and their cash came from cultivating the da-qing plant, whose indigo was sold to the mainland. Da-qing is the plant we know as Strobilanthes cusia, a perennial in the Acanthaceae family. Because it is usually grown in the hills it is also called “hill indigo,” and since it supplies the dye for blue cloth it is also known as “big blue.” It blooms from November to February with purple flowers and thrives in warm, humid conditions—exactly the environment found in Pingxi. According to the 1944 edition of the old Taiwan Farmers’ Handbook, the indigo produced in Pingxi Township, Taihoku Prefecture, had a purity of about 75–80 percent and was called “indigo paste,” distinct from the blue mud of other regions. Local historians report that in Pingxi the indigo industry concentrated on producing the dye rather than cloth; there were no sizable dye-works, only large-scale indigo-paste production for export. To preserve these ancestral skills, the “Pingxi Indigo Workshop” was established.