TeaChat

i mean really awesome one, were you even get fascinated when you see the unfurled leaves

Floating Leaves Tea has a beautiful Lishan from Spring 2012!

In order to state "best," one would have to try all of the qualifying selections available. Then one would have to be qualified to make such a judgement.

I had one Spring 2012 so far this year from MountainTea.com which I felt was very good.

Perhaps you should begin your own quest ... and then report back what you felt was best.

But til then, we can discuss which we have tried and felt were "awesome" or best that we have tried.

I have tried the Lishan (Spring 2012) from Floating Leaves and liked it, but this year I actually preferred the Shan Lin Xi from Floating Leaves. Taste is so subjective, so what I like in a Li Shan oolong may be much different than what someone else likes. My favorite Li Shan from last winter was actually a Jin Xuan varietal, go figure. Li Shan oolong does tend to be my favorite high mountain oolong, so I like trying them from all different vendors. Looking forward to trying the Li Shan from Mountain Tea.

The best I had so far was the "Tian Chi Li Shan Cha" from Hojotea, the taiwanese president's tea. Very expensive but it makes you wonder whether you should not drink tea only once a week but this kind of tea...

David R. wrote:The best I had so far was the "Tian Chi Li Shan Cha" from Hojotea, the taiwanese president's tea. Very expensive but it makes you wonder whether you should not drink tea only once a week but this kind of tea...

I believe this tea is also sold by Teahome or one of the other online shops in Taiwan. I wonder what the price difference would be.

Tead Off wrote:

David R. wrote:The best I had so far was the "Tian Chi Li Shan Cha" from Hojotea, the taiwanese president's tea. Very expensive but it makes you wonder whether you should not drink tea only once a week but this kind of tea...

I believe this tea is also sold by Teahome or one of the other online shops in Taiwan. I wonder what the price difference would be.

I don't seem to see it on Teahome's Chinese website, but they do have pretty reliable teas for a very reasonable price. Never tried their Lishan, but might be worth a shot.

Newbie here, when you guys saw LiShan do you mean 李山 or 梨山? The two are different correct? I ask because the best gao shan oolong I've had was labelled 李山 and I've been looking for something comparable since. It has so much nuttiness and creaminess. Perhaps I was just lucky on my brew.

javi_sanchez wrote:Newbie here, when you guys saw LiShan do you mean 李山 or 梨山? The two are different correct? I ask because the best gao shan oolong I've had was labelled 李山 and I've been looking for something comparable since. It has so much nuttiness and creaminess. Perhaps I was just lucky on my brew.

李山? Where's that? We're all talking about 梨山. Who labeled your tea? It's possible your vendor made a mistake typing.

Babelfish says Li Shan is 李山...

There are a million homonyms in Chinese. Li gets you 200 common characters easily, I think, not counting rare ones or variants. Babelfish and other translation software go by frequency analysis, and 李 shows up the most for Li because it's the biggest surname in the world.

So, for tea purposes, we're talking about 梨山.

On the plus side (and sorry for continuing the tanget), Babelcarp gets it right.

Also for reference, 梨山.

Good to know about common mix-ups, though... hopefully the misspelling issue is independent of the quality of the tea..........

Drax wrote:On the plus side (and sorry for continuing the tanget), Babelcarp gets it right.

Also for reference, 梨山.

Good to know about common mix-ups, though... hopefully the misspelling issue is independent of the quality of the tea..........

no you helped me a lot, i thought she was referring to the novel lol.

MarshalN wrote:There are a million homonyms in Chinese. Li gets you 200 common characters easily, I think, not counting rare ones or variants. Babelfish and other translation software go by frequency analysis, and 李 shows up the most for Li because it's the biggest surname in the world.

So, for tea purposes, we're talking about 梨山.

Unfortunately it looks like someone labeled the tea using babelfish

It seems I've been mixing up 李(plum) with 梨(pear). My teacher never corrected me whenever I called her Mrs. Pear in English! All of my tasting notes have the correct spelling too. I'm never as smart as I think I am...

So the best LiShan I've had to date was Dragon Tea House's "soft stemmed" one. I had some a year ago and it had plenty of the nuttiness I like. I don't remember it changing very complex across brews but so far it has been the most flavorful.

I remember Redblossom's 2011 LiShan being very good but I didn't take detailed notes on it. I bought some their 2012 and so far have been very disappointed considering the price.

A friend brought me some LiShan(it says 梨!) with a really pretty fancy box but I haven't given much time. I will report back when I have.

Note: I brew in a 150ml gaiwan and usually use 5-7g of tea.