Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Oolong Tea
Where to Buy: Tea At Sea
Tea Description:
Organic grown in the Halimun Mountains of Indonesia at 800m above Sea-Level. Treated with natural spring water and fresh mountain air. These 35% oxidized tea leaves have a honey milk aroma, light creamy taste with a hint of marine. Wake up the tea leaves and steep around 100°C and watch how the leaves slowly unfold to extract their natural flavour. Enjoy!
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Mountain Organic Indonesian Oolong Tea from Tea At Sea has consistently high ratings over at Steepster. I tend to agree with those high ratings but here is my take on this specific tea.
Upon opening the package it looks and smells like your average oolong but the taste is what I will be focusing in this review! First impressions on this first sip were great! First and foremost I had a strong honeysuckle flavor smack my taste buds from the very beginning. Then there were other floral and semi-sweet grassy notes to follow. In follow-up sips and at shorter steeping times I noticed more buttery, creamy, and milky type flavors come into play. An interesting find with a lingering aftertaste was the hint of peach I could pick up on as well.
As long as you don’t over infuse this one you should have ‘smooth sailin’ with this one. Pardon the pun but seriously…Mountain Organic Indonesian Oolong Tea from Tea At Sea is a nice, solid yet smooth, greener tasting oolong that I enjoyed very much!
Organic Mountain Indonesian Black Tea from Tea At Sea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Tea At Sea
Tea Description:
Grown in the Halimun Mountains of Indonesia at 800m above Sea-Level, treated with natural spring water and fresh mountain air. The fully oxidized tea leaves have a complex smoky aroma and a rich, smooth, malty taste of deep forest with hints of cedar.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I’ve had a few different Indonesian black teas, but, I can’t recall having one that I liked more than I’m enjoying this Organic Mountain Indonesian Black Tea from Tea At Sea. It’s so good!
The first thing that I notice is the malty notes. It’s almost “thick” with malt taste. And unlike other malty teas (Assam, for example) I detect no bitterness with this tea. Just smooth, sweet, rich flavor with a delectable sweet caramel note that complements the malty flavor well. It reminds me of the sweet, caramelized crust of a freshly baked loaf of bread.
Then I start to notice the complexity of this tea. It’s not just sweet and malty and richly full-flavored. It has lovely woodsy notes to it as well as a far-off smoky note, evoking thoughts of walking through the woods and smelling the smoke billowing out of a chimney from a log cabin in the distance. It tastes warm and earthy and cozy.
This is the kind of tea that I’d like to curl up to on a chilly afternoon. Then again, it does taste quite nice as it cools, making a tasty iced tea. However, with the chill comes less of the complexity, so if you want to enjoy the many flavors this tea has to offer, I recommend trying it hot first!
Mountain Organic Indonesian Black Tea from Tea At Sea
Tea Type:
Black Tea
Where To Buy:
Tea At Sea
Product Description:
Grown in the Halimun Mountains of Indonesia at 800m above Sea-Level, treated with natural spring water and fresh mountain air. The fully oxidized tea leaves have a complex smoky aroma and a rich, smooth, malty taste of deep forest with hints of cedar. Steep at 100°C.
Directions:
Steep 1.5 – 2 tsp at 100°C for 5-8 min.
Tasters Review:
I, for one, LOVE just about everything about this tea…Mountain Organic Indonesian Black Tea from Tea At Sea is pleasing to the eye and tongue! From the very beginning of me opening my box from them I was impressed! The packaging of the samples were delightful to look at but the small addition was what put the first smile on my face! I really LOVE the little “press kit” promotional visual they included in my mailing! It looks a lot like the photo above…it was a half of a Wine Cork for the base with a tooth pick for the ‘body’ and a heavy duty paper that you clipped on for the sail! Very nice! I was able to sample both their Black Tea as well as their Oolong Tea and both were lovely…but right here and right now I will be telling you a little bit about my tasting experience with their Black Tea.
Once infused the tea color in the cup is that of a medium brown. The aroma is slightly sweet and slightly bready or crusty – as I like to say – I could totally see myself pairing this with a pastry or bagel for breakfast! The flavor is delicious. It’s not too dark or too heavy. It’s not overly bold or brash. It’s ‘just right’. This is a great black tea to have on hand for yourself or for company. A good Black tea for any time of day. I was able to get multiple infusions out of this – 2 or 3 of them without it losing it’s flavor.
The teas that Tea At Sea have featured on their website look great and if they are anything like the two I have tried they will have a solid offering of great teas! I’m eager to see if they add more to their catalog!
Organic Mountain Indonesian Green Tea from Tea At Sea
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Tea At Sea
Tea Description:
Grown in the Halimun Mountains of Indonesia at 800m above Sea-Level, this tea is treated with natural spring water and fresh mountain air. The lightly oxidized tea leaves have a seaweed aroma, slight fruity taste of superior freshness. Steep at 85°C and observe the leaves slowly unfolding to extract their natural flavour.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I’ve not tried a lot of teas from Indonesia, but I’ve had the good fortune to be able to try a few. This Organic Mountain Indonesian Green Tea from Tea At Sea is one of the most impressive teas I’ve tasted from the region.
The leaves of this are wound into pellets resembling a greener Oolong like Tie Guan Yin. This has a very fresh, uplifting flavor that is soft and smooth, with some buttery notes and a texture that is similar to butter too. There is a mild vegetative taste to this, and together with the buttery taste, it’s reminiscent of freshly steamed, lightly buttered spinach. There are floral mid-notes, and delicate nutty tones and fruit notes in the distance.
But mostly what I taste from this tea is sweetness! It’s a beautifully sweet green tea – no bitterness and next to no astringency. There is a hint of citrus-y taste toward the finish which is very, very lightly astringent.
These leaves barely opened in the first infusion. They are just begging me to infuse them again! I must comply!
The second infusion was even more flavorful than the first. I found stronger floral and vegetative notes, and the distant nutty tones started to become more distinct. This is still sweet and creamy. I am noticing a little more astringency with this cup.
I infused the leaves a third time, and found that the flavors began to wane with this cup. It’s still sweet but not as creamy. The flavors were more subdued with the third cup, but it still is a very pleasing cup – and it’s certainly worth the effort to infuse this tea at least three times (it could probably go a fourth!)
Tea At Sea is a new company, and this is my first time sampling one of their products – and this tea is definitely one worth exploring! I love this company’s thoughtful packaging – it’s very fun and has a definite nautical theme in keeping with the company name. The labels are tags (shown above!) that are tied onto the packages with white string and in my envelope of samples I also received a cute little cork ship! Neat!