The Mountain Tea co

Finally cracked this bad boy open today

My hopes were mixed as I know MT tea co has amazing dongfang meiren, award winning in fact, as well as other grades. That being said I am aware of the aging potential but have yet to see another cake of this nature so I was thinking is maybe more of a gimmick/way of turning lemons into lemonade (stale tea into a collector’s item). I purchased about a year ago and stored the cake in a big tin that is fairly airtight with approximately a LB of other various Dongfang meiren teas (the whiff once I opened it was intoxicating) in my cabinet of my kitchen which I am sure the temperature and humidity varies wildly.

All that being said not sure if I stored it with the best care but the tea was a bit of disappointment. The dry leaf still wasn’t sweet or much a smell at all. The first steeping was not like any other bai hao i’ve had before. It was the hallmark liquor color and the playful muscatel light tannic quality but no sweetness up front like usual and actually a rather strange menthol quality on the back end. I realize later that the cultivar might be red jade tai cha #18 due to the camphor flavors.

While not a bad tea, as I stated it reminded of red jade cultivar also from taiwan, I was hoping and expecting something completely different. I did end up prying a rather lot of fanning and dust rather than whole leaves so Im sure that was a factor. I will surely tinker with the brewing parameters/prying technique fairly soon so at the moment holding off on numerical rating.

Bottom line if you expecting something sweet look else where it reminded me of a cross between a darjeeling and tai cha #18 both of which I happen to like from time to time.

Large leaves of dark green and brown fill my Gongfu teapot on this beautiful afternoon. This High Elevation Green was a birthday gift from my husband (which was much earlier in the year). I’m currently sorting my tea cupboard to group similar teas together, at the moment my green tea binge has grouped my green teas together for today’s use with this being the first on my list.

The leaves have a mild seaweed like scent, perfumed though heavily mineral and green.

A 30 second steep reveals a light yellow tea that smells like mild flowers and grass. Flavour is floral with light perfume style flavour with some sweetness.

A further 30 second steep reveals a more mineral tasting green tea, albeit remaining light and floral. A little dryness in the after taste. Rather smooth and lightly buttery. Floral wise I liken it to sweet pea.

Another steep which was increased to one minute brings out the dryness. This is by far the lightest of the steeps, though the mild floral and light butter notes remain.

A very gentle green tea with light floral and buttery notes with some mineral green. Not a favourite but a solid light and pure tasting green tea, a nice palate cleanser.

This is an extremely dark, smooth, oolong that’s rather unlike what I think of when I think of an oolong; the malty notes are reminiscent of a good Assam accompanied by a thick honey taste that’s oh-so-delicious. This is a perfect after-dinner treat (try it with red bean cakes, it’s great).

Buoyed by Dexter’s glowing review of this tea, I finally drank this tea last night.

It has quite a lovely rich, warm flavour. The first steep tasted a little like Chinese grocery store oolong in the orange tin if perhaps a little less nutty but subsequent steeps were much rounder, and richer in flavour with good roasted charred notes, balanced with caramel, cinnamon, stewed black cherries and apricots, cocoa, fall leaves, vanilla cream, and mineral notes. The first steep does have that odd mauvish colour that Dexter noted. Pretty tasty if you like dark roast teas.

The dry leaf is like the picture appearing very dark brown to black. They are heavily charred. The tea was well packaged as the nuggets remain solid and tightly wrapped in shape as I think the level of roasting may make them prone to crumbling.

The broth was a eddish grey tinged brown for first steep, more red tinged golden brown for others.

40s. Scent Charcoal tinged roasted grain note, caramel, sweet dried apricot mixed with cherry and plum, hint of fall leaves spice note

Taste Toasted grains up front opening to brown sugar caramel note, hints of fruit and leaves layered in bbetween, bitter cocoa mixes with sweet sugar in the aftertaste. black cherry like fruit note becomes stronger as it cools and charcoal moves to the background.

35s scent roasted note, caramel over cherry with cinnamon, cocoa, fall leaves.

Taste Roasted note blended with much stronger cocoa note and fall leaves, over caramel, stewed black cherry and cinnamon.

40s scent. fruit, spice and caramel, moving to the front combined with the cocoa, roasted note moving into background

Taste Caramel, cocoa, with roasted notes over stewed cherries and cinnamon, leaf note gone.

50s. Taste Roasted note caramel cocoa, fruit heading more to dried apricot.

70s taste . Roasted grain, cocoa, caramel, joint of warm fruit with cinnamon. Black liquorice tone in aftertaste.

90s. Taste same as above with a little vanilla cream and the caramel notes are mellowing, but the tea is quite sweet, with a hint of roasted ash note, less fruit, and more cream, cocoa and mineral notes

150 taste sweet notes fading, roasted grain notes, cream, and mineral notes, with fading caramel and cocoa.

5min taste cream, cocoa,roasted,notes,vanilla, caramel., mineral note.

6min taste continuing to fade but still flavourful.

The spent leaves are charred in such away that even though they have unwound the blades remain mostly wound and are curly not flat leaves are dark chocolate brown.

A really nice warm tasting tea!

I’m really in love with this tea. If you weren’t told it was an oolong, you would never guess. It kind of reminds me of a Yunnan Gold/Red.

If you brew hotter and longer, you get more spice. But I brewed about 185 in gaiwan, short steeps. Then I slowly increased time and temp with every 4 or 5 steeps.

The liquor is just gorgeous, especially once the leaves open up. The scent of the wet leaves is just intoxicating. Get a lot of prune, malt, honey, and hint of spice, like a cinnamon.

Flavor is great, really rich and luxurious. There’s a sweetness to it, but little kick of spice as well. It peaked for me about steep 4 or 5 in 100ml gaiwan. But I still got about 12 solid steeps from it. After the 5th or so, it becomes more one note, sometimes more honey, sometimes more spice.

Just a great tea. Real high quality leaves. Very happy, and great price. I’ve paid a lot more for much less.

Upped the gram to water 7g/12oz and time (4 mins) which finally resulted in the taste and energy(weirdly enough because it seems to have zero bitterness) I was looking for. More of the flavor came through and I finally tasted the herbaceous brininess I smelled in the dry leaves. The more I drink this tea the more I like it.

Smells like pasta sauce…. the herbs in a red sauce that is and literally every time I smelll it I crave pasta and starch. Back to to the tea though it’s a very light flavor (never goes bitter boiling water for 20+ mins still smooth) it travels well since it can not be over brewed and seems to possess very little caffeine (not bitter at all nor does it give me an energizing “buzz”). So depending on what you are looking for in a green tea not bad.

Overall all it was an impulse buy, it being cheap and I have never tried taiwanese green tea before but I wasn’t that blown away I will try gongfu since it is actually a green heart cultivar so maybe I can get some body out of it if I use boiling water and high leaf to water ratio but until I get anything striking it will just be my buffer tea to drink in between stronger teas.

Dry leaf
I am sick but I smelled a very strong food aroma that was familiar. It reminded me of the mixed herbs in a pasta sauce with a slight hint of briny seafood broth at the end.

Infusions
Reminder I have a cold
Very light green similar to sencha color but lighter with a touch of yellow.
Taste was very light as well but 0 astringency (even after throwing boiling water on it) very refreshing tasted similar to a cold brewed sencha but even lighter more floral and more briny.

Will come back to this one when I am not sick and have taste buds.

This was my first roasted oolong. The dry leaves smell like hay and are wrapped very tightly. The first 2 – 3 steeps are very fragrant with notes of barley, raw almonds, and raw honey. The following steeps reveal more of the roasted notes and complex flavors, which gradually decreases with each steep, yet still leaving a sweet aftertaste. i use a yixing teapot, but I imagine it tasting different with a gaiwan. This was so reasonably priced that I’m considering to buy another pack.

I’ve been drinking this on and off at work for about a week now. This is FANTASTIC.
It’s dark and roasty, with out being in your face smoky. I don’t what else to say about it. It’s good, really good – up there with the best of the best oolongs I’ve tried. This is probably my 2nd favorite dark oolong. (Not quite sure why, but the liquid is a bit purple – a hint of mauve – very unusual, pretty cool)
Thank you so much yyz for sending me this sample.

A sweet tea that has the buttery characteristics of gaoshan. Smells of butter and maple syrup. Very full mouthfeel. Be careful when brewing as it can become quite astringent if over steeped.

not bad…not great…120ml gaiwan,8g…

A very nice crisp citrusy and sweet cup. There is a nice balance of contrasting astringency and honey, citrus sweetness – kumquats come to mind while I sip away. I’m currently discovering a numbing sensation to the roof of my mouth and sides of the tongue. There are some faint floral notes after you get past steeping 4. I’ll need to try this one at a lower temp later on and try to pull more perspective from it total capabilities. Pretty great start for a Saturday morning (now afternoon:)!

Getting a little more sugar sweetness and scent from a short second steep, but we’ll probably have to start from scratch to test time and temp differences. I’m not a frequent multiple steeper, but to my bumbling taste buds, once green or oolong tea has “set,” the second steep doesn’t seem to change it a great deal.

Oolongs get overlooked at my house a lot; chiefly because in my lopsided and ragged classification system, it rates as an afternoon tea and there aren’t a lot of spare tea-drinkin’ afternoons around here.

Couldn’t quite place what I was tasting until I read the tea description. Nutmeg and orange peel. Yep. Exactly. This appears to have multiple personalities based on the water temp—I went hotter and longer which resulted in the spicy vibe. Enough left in the little sample packet to try one slower and lower to see if I can hunt down the malt sugar.

As my mom’s condition declines more and more steeply, my dad is wisely starting to downsize and he’s asked my sister and me to begin sorting and saving what’s worthwhile from Mom’s sewing room, where she spent decades stitching quilts for friends and family and scores of little shirts and dresses that were packed in mission boxes for Honduran children who may have kids of their own by now. As I drink this tea, I’m pawing through a fruitcake tin of orphan buttons and a stack of paper needle packets from the 1950’s thinking how nice it would be to hear the whir of the sewing machine and the little metallic snip of her scissors.

This is a tea that I’ve been eyeing for a while. I love oolongs and one called “heritage honey” sounded so alluring! The scent of this tea is very strongly floral. Super floral oolongs make me nervous, but I’m interested to see if this floral note carries over into the taste. Sipping… oh, good! It’s not a mouthful of flowers. It actually starts out as a very smooth cup and fades quickly into a light honey flavor. So tasty! Some floral notes do come out at the end of the sip and blend very well with the honey. The honey is not terribly dark and sweet like that in a Mi Lan Dan Cong tea, but it is so nice mixed with the floral and lightly fruity notes. This is a nice alternative to the darker, roasted, fruity and strongly floral oolongs. It’s definitely a unique tea that would be a nice addition to any collection. I’ll keep this one in mind for future orders! Thank you, Nicole for sharing!

First steep for 20s:
Incredibly buttery and smooth. Very enjoyable.

Second steep for 30s:
Essentially the same, slightly sweeter.

Third steep for 40s:
Sweeter, but still very buttery, slightly less smooth.

Yesterday was chilly and rainy, today was hot and sunny. It is days like this that make me loathe the Midwest, I was so enjoying the rain that when I woke up to the blazing sun I snarled at the sky and hid under my pillow wishing it was November already. After braving the heat and sunlight and crawling out from under my mound of protective pillows, I decided I want a tea that evokes Autumn, and honey is one of those things. I am not entirely sure why honey evokes Autumn to me since its sunshine colors are more of a Summer thing, but here we are.

Leaves are beautiful!
Today we are reviewing Heritage Honey Oolong by Mountain Tea, an Oolong from Nantou, Taiwan that was picked at an altitude of 1,300 meters about sea level. The aroma of this beautiful green Oolong is first and foremost of honey, very rich and sweet. It reminds me more of raw wildflower honey than clover, but that just shows how much honey I tend to eat. Following the initial honey aroma is heady flowers, especially night blooming Angel Trumpets, blending the almost intoxicating floral with a tiny hint of citrus. Lastly there are notes of chestnuts with a slightly figgy afterthought.

Note to self: sticking face in hot tea cup will end in a burnt nose
While the tea is steeping I notice that it, like the Tie Guan Yin I reviewed earlier, is managing to fill the area with its aroma. Considering I am outside on a breezy day, that is no small feat. I think if I had to chose one word to describe the aroma of the steeping tea it would be hypnotic. The slight figginess has disappeared, but the remaining aroma is that of honey, chestnuts, and intensely floral. Orchids and orange blossoms swirl around in my nose and it is bliss. The liquid without the leaves takes on more of a roasted chestnut aroma with notes of sweet honey.

The taste is pleasantly and surprisingly mild. I was expecting with an aroma that was so intense that the flavor would knock me into some sort of trance, but instead the flavors are subtle and mild, they just creep up on you. The main flavor is floral, reminiscent of orchids with just slight tart notes of orange blossoms, it melts into sweet honey and finished with a whisper of creamy peach. This mild Oolong would be heavenly on a rainy day, but I actually think drinking this on a hot day was perfect. I have to get more of this Oolong, if I am not careful it may supplant Tie Guan Yin for the coveted spot of ‘favorite tea’.

English style steeping:

Steep 1: Smells not unlike brandy. Fantastic aroma. A little sweet.

Steep 2: Strong flavour still, much sweeter than the first steep.

Steep 3: Flavour is starting to wane, I think I can get one more steep out of this tea.