Mountain Stream Teas’ Sanxia Aged Green Tea Cake | Tea Review

I like exploring Mountain Stream Teas’ website because of all the unique teas. This one caught my eye because it is an intentionally aged green tea!

Description: “The taste profile is something between a young sheng and fresh green tea, light, fruity and slightly floral with a subtle vegetal rootedness.”

Instructions: 5 grams | 100 ml | 95°C/205°F | 30, 45, 60 seconds, then add 5-10 seconds | 3-4 steeps

Review: What also drew me to this tea is that the producer/family is located 20 minutes outside of Taipei in Taiwan. When I visited Taiwan a few years ago, I stayed in Taipei so, this is in proximity to where I was!

The material for this tea was hand-plucked in spring-fall 2016 (without the use of finger blades) and placed into storage, which is uncommon for green teas. In 2020, the family decide to press it into cakes.

The dry cake does not look like green tea as it was very dark in colour and only had a faint trace of a green tinge. The description of the tea was on the mark, however, as it reminded me of a young sheng with its more vegetal and faint musky fermented smell.

Pre-warmed teapot: Once in the warmed vessel, the aroma of the tea was much stronger with vegetal, nutty, and seaweed notes. Since it had a lingering fermented smell, it reminded me of soya sauce.

Infusion 1 (30 seconds): The liquor took on a pale rose gold colour with small pieces of the tea at the bottom of the teapot. It didn’t have an overly strong taste with hints of roasted nuts, seashore, and savoury vegetables which ended with fresh grass cuttings.

Infusion 2 (45 seconds): The tea had a much darker golden liquor with a musky and vegetal smell. Since it had roasted, nutty, and vegetal quality, it tasted like a Dragonwell/pan-fried green tea mixed with the bite and astringency of a young sheng pu-erh.

Infusion 3 (60 seconds): Similar to Infusion 2 but with a smaller range of flavours. It was mostly vegetal and nutty with bitterness that lingered at the back of the throat and teeth.

Infusion 4 (1 minute and 10 seconds): The dark golden colour liquor had no real smell but had a flash of vegetal taste which quickly became astringency on the tongue.

The wet leaves were an olive green colour made of small leaves and buds with a vegetal, nutty, and fermented smell. I wasn’t sure what to pair this with so, I ended up tasting it alone.

I liked the range of flavours in this green tea, as I tend not to like young sheng pu-erhs due to the astringency they sometimes have. Another thing to note about this tea is that it is a Qin Xin Gan Zhong heritage cultivar tea. When I noticed that the producer has other teas from the same cultivar, also purchased a white tea as well. Overall, this was an interesting experience and I want to see how this cultivar affects the taste of a white tea (3.5/5 rating).

The question of the post: Have you ever had an aged green tea?