TeaChat

After reading Bubba Tea's post on Dong Ding, and taking a wrong turn, I stopped at a local Asian food market. Actually, it has all Asian quisines, African, Mexican, everything but Hamburger Helper. Although, I wasn't in the mood for goat.

The translation on the back is funny. However I am wondering if anyone knows why they call it Tone Ting (and not Tung Ting)? Typo? Anyway, for tea from a local world market, it was great. Paid $8 bucks for 100g. Packaged on 01-14-2008.

I am a sucker for cool packaging:



And it did fulfill it's promise of a "leisurely, carefree mood".

augie wrote:

Aw, I'm a sucker for packaging too! There's a crappy tea at my Uwajimaya that I want because the tin is so cool. It's called KING oolong. Haha! It's $4.99, but I just know that the tin won't be any good to store actual tea, so I have refrained until now.

Ohh nice tin, yeah I would have gone for it too.

Nice tin FTW!!! I will buy a cool tin of tea just for the tin!

I hope you enjoy the tin and the tea, augie.

I agree. If it's a nice tin then it would cost you about the same to get it empty (after shipping) anyway.

Although it's certainly no absolute, I figure that if it's good enough to keep the tea you're buying relatively fresh, then it'll probably do just as well with your tea of choice. Who knows, the tea in it might even turn out to be decent.

augie wrote:After reading Bubba Tea's post on Dong Ding, and taking a wrong turn, I stopped at a local Asian food market. Actually, it has all Asian quisines, African, Mexican, everything but Hamburger Helper. Although, I wasn't in the mood for goat.

The translation on the back is funny. However I am wondering if anyone knows why they call it Tone Ting (and not Tung Ting)? Typo? Anyway, for tea from a local world market, it was great. Paid $8 bucks for 100g. Packaged on 01-14-2008.

I am a sucker for cool packaging:



And it did fulfill it's promise of a "leisurely, carefree mood".

What do you mean?
Ding Dong, oops Dong Ding is Dong Ding cos it's from Dong Ding mountain

Tung Ting perhaps is Cantonese pronunciation or Taiwanese..

I've heard Taiwanese tea tins have a number of flower to show the quality of leaves, I would not know..I've only bought from wholesalers..

chrl42 wrote: Tung Ting perhaps is Cantonese pronunciation or Taiwanese..

It's a misspelling, because I have only every seen Dong Ding (Tung Ting). Tone Ting it says on the tin. Reading the english trans. on the back of the tin is a riot.

chrl42 wrote:I've heard Taiwanese tea tins have a number of flower to show the quality of leaves, I would not know..I've only bought from wholesalers..

This tin pictures flowers and butterflies, but no cicadas! It has a cool spray coating over the printing to make the can appear irridescent.[/b]

augie wrote:

chrl42 wrote: Tung Ting perhaps is Cantonese pronunciation or Taiwanese..

It's a misspelling, because I have only every seen Dong Ding (Tung Ting). Tone Ting it says on the tin. Reading the english trans. on the back of the tin is a riot.

It isn't a "misspelling", because the correct "spelling" is 凍頂 in traditional Chinese characters. There are different methods of romanization, and the sound represented in hanyu pinyin with "d" is kind of in between a "d" and a "t" (i.e., "doufu" (tofu)) - an "unaspirated t". In the past, "t" was used more often, hence "tung ting" or similar romanizations. The Taiwanese generally don't use hanyu pinyin, the system that mainland China uses for romanization, so people either just make it up semi-phonetically, or follow other romanization systems. Thus, what would be 'zhang' in Hanyu pinyin might be written 'chang', even as 'chang' might also be written as 'chang'.

The actual sound in Mandarin Chinese is neither a d nor a t (also, the o in "dòng" is more like the o in "oh" than the o in "clock", and I don't think the "ng" would usually be quite as pronounced as in English, so "tone" is actually probably a little closer to the sound if pronounced phonetically than the way most english-speaking people would pronounce "tung". Also, the "i" is an "ee" sound when it's after a d.

You can hear some recordings of both words at:
http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E5%86%BB/1303442
http://www.nciku.com/search/all/%E9%A0%82

I'm not sure how you would say this (if at all) in Taiwanese, but I'll ask around.

wyardley wrote: It isn't a "misspelling", because the correct "spelling" is 凍頂 ...

Thanks once again for the no-BS big picture. Obviously, most of us are totally flummoxed by Chinese, no less the native speakers than us foreigners. The patience of a knowledgeable student of the language is much appreciated.

wyardley wrote: It isn't a "misspelling", because the correct "spelling" is 凍頂 in traditional Chinese characters. There are different methods of romanization, . . . .
The actual sound in Mandarin Chinese is neither a d nor a t (also, the o in "dòng" is more like the o in "oh" than the o in "clock", and I don't think the "ng" would usually be quite as pronounced as in English, so "tone" is actually probably a little closer to the sound if pronounced phonetically than the way most english-speaking people would pronounce "tung". Also, the "i" is an "ee" sound when it's after a d.

Cool, thanks. Many times, when reading instructions or the backs of tins like this I just arrogantly assume that it's a misspelling or translation error. I need to be more open minded!

wyardley wrote:

augie wrote:

chrl42 wrote: Tung Ting perhaps is Cantonese pronunciation or Taiwanese..

It's a misspelling, because I have only every seen Dong Ding (Tung Ting). Tone Ting it says on the tin. Reading the english trans. on the back of the tin is a riot.

It isn't a "misspelling", because the correct "spelling" is 凍頂 in traditional Chinese characters. There are different methods of romanization, and the sound represented in hanyu pinyin with "d" is kind of in between a "d" and a "t" (i.e., "doufu" (tofu)) - an "unaspirated t". In the past, "t" was used more often, hence "tung ting" or similar romanizations. The Taiwanese generally don't use hanyu pinyin, the system that mainland China uses for romanization, so people either just make it up semi-phonetically, or follow other romanization systems. Thus, what would be 'zhang' in Hanyu pinyin might be written 'chang', even as 'chang' might also be written as 'chang'.

The actual sound in Mandarin Chinese is neither a d nor a t (also, the o in "dòng" is more like the o in "oh" than the o in "clock", and I don't think the "ng" would usually be quite as pronounced as in English, so "tone" is actually probably a little closer to the sound if pronounced phonetically than the way most english-speaking people would pronounce "tung". Also, the "i" is an "ee" sound when it's after a d.

You can hear some recordings of both words at:
http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E5%86%BB/1303442
http://www.nciku.com/search/all/%E9%A0%82

I'm not sure how you would say this (if at all) in Taiwanese, but I'll ask around.

Well, I was mentioning Pu Tong Hua (standard), the one you can find from a dictionary..

Beijing is a romanization of PTH but in West it's often written Peking. And Beijing and Peking is obviously different sound and thats why I thought Peking is from Cantonese (since most of immigrants were Cantonese).

Taiwanese I meant was Chinese-Taiwanese (native Taiwanese language is Hokkien, right?). I had a Chinese Taiwanese girlfriend back then, and what she spoke(mandarin) was a bit different from Pu Tong Hua (let's say Beijing or Dongbei) hence the romanization.


I don't know..maybe someone good with Cantonese (Heavydoom?) can clarify this ..

wyardley wrote:You can hear some recordings of both words at:
http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E5%86%BB/1303442
http://www.nciku.com/search/all/%E9%A0%82

I'm not sure how you would say this (if at all) in Taiwanese, but I'll ask around.

Wow - that website is too cool! Great addition to my old standby http://zhongwen.com/

The handwrite character section is sweeeeeet.

Today's newsletter from Tea from Taiwan:

Our Ming Xiang oolong tea is produced on Dong Ding Mountain. This oolong tea has a unique honey aroma which is produced from activities of cicadas on the tea leaves. The honey aroma of Dong Ding Ming Xiang is a guarantee that the tea is organic - pesticides would keep the cicadas away.

It is always funny that they only tell you so much, then leave the rest to our imagination. "Activity" is a pretty open ... activity. They word it similarly on their site as well.

They do go on to say that their Dong Ding is grown on Dong Ding. Most Dong Ding sold today is only refering to the oolong style and is not necessarily grown on or even near Dong Ding.

This is very cool and interesting. We don't like to think of the part insects play in our food production but they're definitely key. The cicadas probably perform a similar task as bees do for us for most of our major crops. Insects are so important in pollonation and crop formation. Thanks for the great info Chip! Someone pass the Dong Ding!

(P.S. Does Adagio plan on carrying a Dong Ding anytime soon?)

Isn't Oolong #18 a Dong Ding-style oolong? I don't know what mountainous origins it claims, but I thought that was classic DD style.