Alishan High Mountain Oolong Tea

This winter's crop offers a balanced, smooth character with a smooth texture and a light vegetal base with a refreshing floral finish. It's a very friendly introduction to High Mountain Tea that is bound to please newbies as well as experienced drinkers of Taiwan's finest.

This batch of tea comes from Ruili Village in the Meishan Township of Chiayi County, Taiwan. We source our Alishan High Mountain Oolong from same farm. The neighboring villages of Ruifeng and Ruili have increasingly become popular sources of Alishan High Mountain Oolong in the last 10-15 years in the local industry. Originally, Alishan tea was originally made famous by the newly developed area on the south-western foothills of Alishan, with the most famous place name being Shizuo. This area is along the main tourist route leading to Alishan Scenic Area, and the local tea industry flourished and developed as a result. While quality tea is still produced in this area, it has become somewhat over-popularized and over-developed.

Zhangshuhu was the earliest "new hot spot" for Alishan High Mountain Tea, that became a popular resource 15-20 years ago. But at the same time, neighboring villages developed tea farms and sold their produce for a more reasonable price, yet offering competitive quality. Just a bit down the mountain, we've discovered that there are more family-run operations and smaller farms. We firmly believe that this makes a difference not only on a sustainable level, but also in terms of the quality of tea produced.

When farms are run privately, there is more care and responsibility that goes into the management of them. This, combined with smaller factories results in smaller quantities of tea leaves being processed on a daily and seasonal basis. This smaller batch factor allows for more customized processing, and is also typically done by the farmers/owners themselves, who take more pride in their processing methods and quality of their product.

Mug: 8g tea in 300ml 100°C water. Steep for 4 minutes. Re-steep. Adjust to taste.

Cold Brew: Use 5g of tea per liter of water. Brew tea at room temperature for 2-3 hours, and enjoy. Or you can put your cold brew bottle in the fridge to brew overnight and be ready to drink the next day.

Gong Fu: Start with a 1:15 ration of leaves to water (10g tea leaves for 150mL water) and adjust to preference. Use boiling temperature water and brew for about 50 seconds. Increase brewing time with each successive brew. The leaves can be brewed 6 times.