**NOTE: Starting this month we are going to post the educational insert for each month's subscription box here on the blog. Honestly, we should have done it a while ago.

Taoyuan Terroir Study

Mountain Stream Teas Teaducation Subscription Service, October, 2025

This month we do a deep dive into a unique and little know tea growing region of Taiwan. Taoyuan’s lower elevation and fertile soil make it a fascinating spot to understand how terroir can impact the choices of tea producers.

What are the teas we will look at this month?

Included this month are:

1. Chinese Mesona Herbal Tea (Grass Jelly), 200m elevation, Herbal Tea, hand picked in Summer, 2025, Longtan, Taoyuan County, Platostoma palustre

Tasting notes: Dark vegetal, Strong medicinal

1. Heat Leaf Herbal Tea, 200m elevation, Herbal Tea, hand picked in Summer, 2025, Longtan, Taoyuan County, Houttuynia cordata

Tasting notes: Slight orange citrus, fresh leaf litter

1. Perilla Herbal Tea, 200m elevation, Herbal Tea, hand picked in Summer, 2025, Longtan, Taoyuan County, Perilla frutescens var. crispa

Tasting notes: Menthol, spicy Asian Basil, grass

1. Peach Garden Milk Baozhong, 200m elevation, 15% Oxidization, hand picked in Spring, 2025, Longtan, Taoyuan County, Jinxuan

Tasting notes: Soft vegetal, creamy sweet

1. Peach Garden Black Tea, 200m elevation, 100% Oxidization, machine picked in Spring, 2025, Longtan, Taoyuan County, Qinxin

Tasting notes: Sweet red fruit, soft malt

BONUS: Gardenia Flower Oolong!

What Is The Character Of Taoyuan?

Low, hot, overlooked, with a large divide between the economies of the cities and the rural areas, Taoyuan has Taiwan’s largest airport, and a large hinterland. It also has a lot of land suitable for tea, but no ‘famous’ style of tea or name recognition. What that means is that the farmers in this area have to either work hard to create larger quantities of decent, ‘passable’ cheaper tea or somehow differentiate themselves with trying something unique. This month’s box has both of these examples and give you a great overview of this often overlooked area.

The ‘Peach Garden’ (the direct translation of Taoyuan) series of teas is great example of clean, decent, humble, extremely cheap tea that is often made and sold to farmers in other areas to be rebranded as tea from another area and sold again. These teas are good, not great, but have a price point half as much as a tea with the same name and quality from a more famous area. Or at least we think so!

We also included a bot of the Gardenia Flower Oolong as an example of a similar quality milk oolong that was ‘improved’ to be able to be sold for a higher price. When you try them see if you can pick out the similarities between the milk oolongs. They are not that different, but adding the gardenia flower scent makes a big difference for marketability but comes with an added cost and risk!

The herbal teas that we included are another example of how farmers in this area create value. They are unique, high quality and relatively rare brews that have very small, niche markets. We bought them out of a desire to learn and expand what we offer and experience. We hope you enjoy them and your feedback is always welcome. Should we bring more herbal teas to the shop? In any case, we hope you have fun with them. There are some unique and challenging flavors in there!

How to Brew The Herbal Teas

Boiling water, a larger vessel and experimentation are the best ways to brew these teas. There is no ‘right way’ to brew them, and their unique tastes are enjoyed differently for everyone. While they can all be brewed Gong Fu style, we find steeping in a larger vessel(300ml or so) for a minute or two seems to be the best bet for us. Good luck and remember to change brewing parameters if the brew is too strong!

About Health Claims

All the herbal tea this month have claims about health benefits. We choose to purposely stay away from making claims about health effects in any of products, including these tisanes. If you are interested in the purported health benefits of any of the teas, just throw the name into the search engine of your choice!

The Mystery Tea

This month’s mystery ‘tea’ is a tisane that you won’t soon forget! Be very careful with brewing this one. It is very, very strong! Can you guess what it is?

The November Box

As we head into the Tea Show Season here in Taiwan, next month’s box will be the annual ‘Tea Show Treasures’ box filled with the strange/classic/challenging and wonderful teas we find at the 2025 Nantou Tea Expo!