Dark Mountain -- Taiwanese Heicha Old Growth Tea Cake

$89.00

Size

200g Cake 5 Cake Tong (1000g in Total) 10g Heicha Sample One Sheng and One Heicha Tea Cake (400g total)

Quantity

Dark Mountain

Taiwanese Heicha Old Growth Tea Cake

**The Fall 2022 pick is now in stock! We have a limited amount of cakes, only 35, so it is best not to wait too long if you want one.**

One of the most special members to our indigenous Taiwanese Camellia Formosensis line of teas, Old Growth Taiwanese Heicha is as unique as they come. Made using the spring pick of 100-300 year old wild-forest-grown tea tree material, these leaves went through some very different processing!

The leaves were picked, solar withered, then 'kill greened' as usual to start the processing. After the kill-green process the tea-master lightly rolled the leaves and then placed them in a pile to ferment for 72 hours. Water was added to the leaves and the temperature was kept steady at 30C during this time to produce a very traditional Chinese-Style Heicha, to our knowledge never before produced with indigenous Taiwanese material!

The taste ends up somewhere between a smooth black and shou puer with the fragrance of honey comb and the taste of fragrant wood and fresh earth with a smooth, sweet aftertaste. This is a tea that is designed to be aged and even after such a short period of time this tea has changed a lot. It is filling but light, and the feeling it gives kept us reaching back for more.

Finished last year, this tea has been resting since then and was perfectly ready to be pressed for us this September. It is ready to be enjoyed now and will only get better with age!

Elevation: 1200-1300m

Status: Wild Garden, Regenerative, Organic

Cultivar: South Western Taiwan Wild Cultivar, Camellia Formosensis (100-300 Year old Trees)

Season: Late September, 2022

Method: Hand picked, processed on site, very small batch

Oxidization: 72 Hour Pile Fermentation

Region: Liugui, Taiwan

Recommend Brewing Style:

Gong Fu Style: 3-5g per 100ml, ~95-100C water(205-212f), 20 second steeps for first 3-4 steeps then adjust to taste. Lasts 7+ steeps.

Western Style: 3-5g per 100ml, ~95-100C water(205-212f), 1-2 minute steeps

This tea is best brewed somewhere in between a Puer and an Oolong. Not flash steeps, but short, hot steeps work pretty good. Experiment and find the best way to brew for you!

I wish I could have bought a sample

I love cooked puerh but this is nowhere close to what I expected. The tea tastes distinctly oolong like with a bunch of strange tastes that do not resemble anything I have tasted over 20 years in the cooked puerh category. It tastes like a combination of Chinese black tea plus oolong with lack of smoothness and thickness that one would expect out of better shou puerhs. I'm sure there are many who will love this tea, I'm not one of them.

Tremendous!

This was quite a pleasant surprise. I bought this because of all the hype surrounding it last year, and I am so glad I did. Will be a regular purchase from here on out. Perfect for the fall and colder temperatures.

We have a winner!!

Do you love dark fruits and spices? Plums, dates, raisins, cinnamon, allsplice? If so, you’d be hard-pressed to find any other dark tea that has a flavor or aroma closer to them than this one. The sweet plum and date aromas are particularly strong, and they stay consistent throughout several steeps. Layered underneath those are the aromas of the darker spices, and the flavor mirrors the aroma. The texture is silky and heavy, like a comfy blanket, and coats your mouth with a pleasant aftertaste that layers up with each additional steep. Comforting, warming, and calming. The perfect tea for a cold night in winter, or a dreary day in late fall.

One of my favorite teas

I can cold brew this or use it in a gong fu ceremony, but overall no matter how I use it it's always my favorite tea. Every time I see it's available I rush to order it. It's naturally sweet on it's own and beautifully flavored.

New Favorite

This cake smells like raisins and cherries and brews up the most comforting tea ever. It has all the best characteristics of a bug-bitten tea (honey aroma), a tippy Assam (robust body), and an oolong (mellow, sweet notes), and nothing bitter. Very smooth.

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Dark Mountain -- Taiwanese Heicha Old Growth Tea Cake

Dark Mountain

Customer Reviews