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I'm looking for some good Bai Hao. Please post your Bai Hao finds, reviews or musings here.

Best I ever had was the top quality from Teamasters. Really something. Expensive but definitively worth it.

Granted I have not had much Bai Hao lately mainly because it is generally not my fave style oolong. However this one was realllly nice. In fact I included it in a few tastings including an OTTI.

http://www.rishi-tea.com/store/bai-hao- ... g-tea.html

http://www.cloudwalkerteas.com/product/SPC-001

This one from Cloudwalker is $27 for 50 grams but I thought it was well worth the money. This and the 2009 from Hou de are the best I've yet tried (Hou de's 2009 and 2010 are sold out).

Thanks guys. Britt, I have some of the 2009 Bei Pu from hou de and its my favorite so far. I was going to buy some of the 2010, but missed it .

edkrueger wrote:Thanks guys. Britt, I have some of the 2009 Bei Pu from hou de and its my favorite so far. I was going to buy some of the 2010, but missed it .

Imo, Hou De's 2010 OB was uninspiring compared to the excellent '09. Teamasters and Naivetea both have nice (and quite pricey) '10's.

Well, I'm glad I got to try the better one then. I saw the one on teamsters, but as you say, its pricey. I might get it.

edkrueger wrote:Thanks guys. Britt, I have some of the 2009 Bei Pu from hou de and its my favorite so far. I was going to buy some of the 2010, but missed it .

Ed,

You may not be that unfortunate in missing Hou de's 2010 OB. Although I liked it, I thought their 2009 and Cloudwalkers 2010 were noticeably better. There was certainly nothing wrong with Hou de's 2010, I just didn't feel it matched last years. If I were to order some more OB right now, I would go with Cloudwalker's. There are very few instances where I wouldn't go to Hou de first, and this just happens to be one of them.

I have ordered 100g from Rishi (minimum order) with a free shipping coupon. I may try Clouldwalker's but the price and shipping are quite high.

edkrueger wrote:I have ordered 100g from Rishi (minimum order) with a free shipping coupon. I may try Clouldwalker's but the price and shipping are quite high.

I haven't tried Rishi but they seem to have an excellent reputation overall. Cloudwalker's price is high but IMO so was the quality of the OB, even more so than normal.

One thing I wasn't happy about was that customs opened the package, slit open the two bags of OB and refastened them with paperclips and scotch tape, and reshipped them to me, along with the pair of $70 oolong cups, in a bubble envelope! From previous orders, I knew Cloudwalker does not ship expensive cups in envelopes or open bags of OB. This is the one concern I have with placing orders in Canada; customs seems to be more concerned with packages from Canada than from other countries. To my knowlege, out of hundreds of packages shipped from Japan and more than a dozen from China, none have ever been opened by customs.

I recently received a 2010 Bai Hao sample from HouDe that was included with another purchase. While I've only brewed it once so far I have to agree that it wasn't very impressive. My favorite so far is an organic OB from Wistaria tea shop. (They do ship overseas.) I bought some last year and it was a very expensive $20/oz. This summer when I went back it had gone up to $30! So I decided not to buy any. I actually prefer roasted TGY and gaoshan cha anyway although a good OB is enjoyable now and then.

In the past I have tried the OB from TeaMasters and have never been disappointed. I have never ordered from Rishi. I'm curious to hear what you think.

I have received the Rishi Bai Hao and rather like it. It is as the description on the website says: Light, fruity and honeyed. Unlike a lot of the lighter fermented Bai Hao, it actually has some body to it. Fruity aftertaste remains on the breath for a while. So, its good, but the real test will come when I cup it against some others.

edkrueger wrote:I have received the Rishi Bai Hao and rather like it. It is as the description on the website says: Light, fruity and honeyed. Unlike a lot of the lighter fermented Bai Hao, it actually has some body to it. Fruity aftertaste remains on the breath for a while. So, its good, but the real test will come when I cup it against some others.

Glad you like it Ed. Hope it cups well with the others.

Thanks again for the recommendation. I was a bit skeptical about Rishi because of some other teas that were very overpriced, but this one is worth the money.

Did a cupping with 2009 Hou De, 2010 Hou De, 2010 Rishi and 2009 FLT.

I ranked:
1st: 2010 Hou De
2nd: 2010 Rishi
3rd: 2009 Hou De
4th: 2009 FLT

My friend ranked:
1st: 2010 Hou De
2nd: 2009 Hou De
3rd: 2010 Rishi
4th: 2009 FLT

More details later.