Cloudline Alishan Spring
“High mountain” (高山) isn’t a marketing term in Taiwan — it’s a legal minimum elevation of 1,000 metres, and it changes the leaf measurably.
Taiwan’s “high mountain” (gao shan, 高山) designation refers to gardens above roughly 1,000 metres, and Alishan sits comfortably past that at 1,300 metres. The elevation matters agronomically, not just for marketing: cooler temperatures and a wider swing between day and night slow the bush’s growth, giving the leaf more time to build the aromatic compounds and amino acids responsible for high-mountain oolong’s characteristic sweetness and lack of bitterness, compared with the same cultivar grown at lower elevation on a faster cycle.
Cloudline picks four times a year, but spring — right as the mountain fog burns off each morning — is the harvest the garden is known for.
Light oxidation, ball-rolled like Tieguanyin, lightly baked rather than heavily roasted — letting the high-elevation character of the leaf stay forward.