A Tea Addict's Journal

Maokong trip

November 18, 2007 · 4 Comments

I went to Maokong today. Maokong is a hill near Taipei. I went there two years ago when I last visited, and I remember you had to switch from subway to a minibus to go up the hill. Between then and now though, they built the new Maokong Gondola. So now, instead of having to ride the very bumpy bus ride up to Maokong from Muzha station, you can just ride the cable car up to the mountain in 20 minutes. Very nice.

There are definitely more people there now, although today was rainy so the crowds probably aren’t nearly as bad as, say, a sunny day. There are lots of farms up there that a visitor can go see and brew tea at. It’s almost impossible to choose which one.

My girlfriend and I went to this Wutie place that I first heard about through RFTD a while ago. The place….. does microwaved tea. Sounds crazy? Yeah…

We ended up just having “Wutie” oolong. This is an Alishan oolong that they somehow concoted with a high fermentation and high roasting. The result is…. interesting. There is a sort of strange fruitiness to the tea beyond the usual roasted Taiwan oolong taste. I don’t know how to describe it other than the aroma of the roasted tea hits the nose very strongly. My grilfriend said bark dust/woody, I said old tangerine peels…. I’m not sure what it is, but whatever it is, it’s a very interesting aroma.

This is the setup they provided. It’s quite decent.

I didn’t get to try the microwaved teas, but I did see them

They’re big balls (1kg or more) of oolongs that were somehow rolled together and then somehow microwaved and then somehow kept in this shape. Very, very hard. I don’t know how they put it together, or how they peel it apart, or how it doesn’t rot. The “master” wasn’t there today, so I couldn’t ask. I wonder if it’s worth going back to figure it out.

But it’s a good place to drink some tea and just relax. We certainly had a great time.

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4 responses so far ↓

  • iwii // November 18, 2007 at 2:06 pm | Reply

    Ooooh! That looks cute! It looks like you went to the beach and brought back some pebbles in your little basket 🙂
    Why do you think it should rot? Do you think puerh would rot without the proper fermentation? To me it just sounds like a “modern” way of processing the tea. Some use woks, some use ovens, why not using microwaves?
    I would have tried it! After all, you already tried teabags in a plane :p

  • lewperin // November 19, 2007 at 2:25 pm | Reply

    Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but I wonder what the relationship between compressing the tea and microwaving it might be. Of course, it won’t matter if the tea turns out not to be worth drinking…

  • MarshalN // November 19, 2007 at 8:08 pm | Reply

    I wonder how he compressed it (by using the microwave — not other methods).  I’m thinking heat — pressure difference….

  • Anonymous // November 20, 2007 at 2:10 am | Reply

    lz, interesting post, on many levels .. a must vist on my next Taipei visit .. might be after new year, so busy in Dongguan at this time .. john .. PS tea samples arrived this am, thx.

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