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Tried western brewing to maybe get a body or richness out of it but nope still nothing such a shame

I remember my last mountain tea order being a lot better Im a little concerned they do not display harvest dates so for all I know the quality drop is a by product of stale tea but I have also tasted a lot of tea since my last order so maybe my tastes have just improved. Either way was not impressed with my first trial with this tea. I felt the tea drunk from the gao shan (fish eye lens, tranquility, big dumb smile) but flavor wise it seemed flat. Will wait to throw a # rating out there until I get dipper into the bag but at the moment a little disappointed considering the money I dropped on my last order.

Back logging and I was a little rushed so Im holding off on a numerical rating at the moment. It was smooth without any unpleasant tastes but there were no pleasant taste either. Their was a slight smokiness but it was in the background and only slightly. Will retry next weekend.

I will try to tinker with steeping but at the moment not worth half the price I paid, some of my hei cha staples are similar in taste/smoothness if not better and a lot less money. That seems to be the tune of my entire last order from mountain tea, I think they have either dropped in quality since winning those awards a few years ago or maybe I have just found much better options since my last order a few years ago either way I will not be reordering from them at the moment. Eco Cha is my new favorite company at the moment :)

-Review
Best I have had to date a little anxious that I accidentally tried my two most expensive cake samples in the last few days, zero smokiness, zero bitterness, zero petrol taste, can not comment on qi or aftertaste as I have a huge caffiene/theanine tolerance and I took flavored fish oil which have their own orange flavored aftertaste lol. Started out herby then sweet like a melon and finally I am getting a mild fruitiness with a slight bite like a meyer lemon or blood orange.

-Take-away
I am finally starting to understand sheng and it’s appeal. Reading something a while back only now just hit me because this tea reminded me of a white tea, something along the lines of "Pu’er starts out tasting like green tea(bitter and astringent just like a green tea would be if you were to throw boiling water on it), later they taste like white tea(slightly fruity with a little astringency, more adept to higher temperatures as technically you can use near boiling water on them), after like an darker oolong (Have not tasted anything this “old” yet), and supposedly finally smooth like a black tea or ripened pu’er(smooth as possible and complex sweet flavors).

This makes sense if you think it existentially and how all types of tea come from one plant so theoretically it is slowly oxidizing itself through the stages of different types of tea. I am pretty jacked on tea at the moment so maybe I am just rambling but whether correct or not I feel a moment of clarity and understanding.

Excuse the simile but this felt like the cadillac of raw Pu Er. I have not had very many raw and sadly this is my “oldest” raw pu er, sad I know but I am still learning. I was so used to super young bitter, smoky, sharp petrol flavor, with a mouth drying after taste but this tea had a heavy mouth feel, it was quenching instead of throat drying, after taste was a little light but had a pleasant sweetness, also the slight smokiness disappeared after the first steeping. I was so cautious because I was used to the super bitter/smoky young sheng that after bracing myself and tasting this tame sheng I upped the steeping times to 30 seconds then a minute then two minutes at which point it of course it got a little bitter but I was stunned a sheng was drinkable with longer than flash steepings.

This is my first youngish sheng and I look forward to trying older and older through the years. This tea had a great qi and a very pleasant soothing brew, it was such a comfort after drinking the fast and hard super young shengs I was accustomed to that felt like a bare bones two seater fun to drive on certain occasions but you feel every bump from hard suspension and not suited for everyday practical driving, this felt like an old caddy boat with the numb suspension and cornering of a semi. An eye opening experience for me and it makes me excited for all like aged samples I have accrued recently.

Great tea but not what I was expecting, it had Mi Lax Xiang for sure but I was expecting more roasted flavor.

I will admit this is my first Mi Lan Xiang but I envisioned it being a roasted flavor with honey overtones instead I got just the honey sweetness. Don’t get me wrong it was pleasant and a great taste I just was not expecting it to be so “light” almost along the lines of a green oolong, in fact all I could think of was similarites between this and the Jin Xuan I tried a few days prior but this had less of the creaminess, body and none of the floralness of that greener oolong.

I will keep tinkering away this is my first interaction with it but maybe letting it go for the full 30 seconds first steeping and increasing from there rather than starting at 15 seconds.

Overall great flavor, high quality just super light and sweeter than I was expecting.

Back log, finally tasted the cold brew by accident because I did not want to discard leaves after only two steepings. Strangely enough the real flavor came through a little more, usually I am burning my tongue because the water is to water from short steepings so I do not always taste the actual subtitles of the tea so it was nice to be able to take a big swig. This is my favorite gao shan so far flavor profile wise, it is not as floral as a jade or a TGY and not as sweet as an ali shan so it seems to be somewhere in the middle which is nice because too much in either direction is one dimensional

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.