TeaChat

Hello Teachat,

Just discovered this forum recently and I've been trying to learn as much as I can. Mostly a lurker but I thought I'd post. I'm not sure if I've posted in the right section, if not please let me know.

So a little back story, a Chinese professor of mine left the university and just before she left we got talking about tea. She travels all over Asia so she's amassed a lot of tea and teawares. Before she left, she handed me a bag with a nice little kyusu and a WHOLE lot of tea. However, I can't read the labels. They just say Korean, Japanese or Chinese tea. So I was wondering if anyone here can maybe help me figure out what I've got.

I could open them all up and find out but I don't want to open so many bags all at once.

Here are the photos:

1. I know this is Tieguanyin, Iron Buddha. That's all i know about it, some more info might be nice



2. This is supposed to be a Chinese tea



3. Japanese tea apparently


4. Japanese tea, I'm not sure if this it a tea or a herbal tea.




5. Korean tea apparently




Finally the kyusu, anyone know what the symbol means?:




I look forward to your replies!

Hmm, interesting.

#3 appears to say "ure no cha," which would mean something like "new growth tea." I can't tell what type of tea it might be beyond that.

#4 is called "gira cha" which appears to be a brand name. It would mean something like "sparkling tea" or "dazzling tea." The stuff on the left says something about having that hometown smell and taste. I think it's a kukicha (stalk/stem tea). The stuff at the top does seem to suggest it's a "health" tea.

As for the kyuusu, I'm very poor at messy grass style, so I can't tell what it says...

Drax wrote:Hmm, interesting.

#3 appears to say "ure no cha," which would mean something like "new growth tea." I can't tell what type of tea it might be beyond that.

Isn't white tea made from the leaves of the new growth ?

#4 is called "gira cha" which appears to be a brand name. It would mean something like "sparkling tea" or "dazzling tea." The stuff on the left says something about having that hometown smell and taste. I think it's a kukicha (stalk/stem tea). The stuff at the top does seem to suggest it's a "health" tea.

It does appear to be all stalks and stems, at first I thought it was some sort of grass, like hay

As for the kyuusu, I'm very poor at messy grass style, so I can't tell what it says...

Thank you for your input Drax, appreciate it!

number 2 tells you what it is on the package in english

teaisme wrote:number 2 tells you what it is on the package in english

Thanks

ok, so we have so far...
1. tieguanyin (light roast green oolong)
2. huangshan maofeng (a kind of chinese green tea)
3. some kind of green tea. Ure no cha, according to Drax
4. I can't read japanese, but the kanji say it's "healthy tea" from the "garden of fragrance and taste". Doesn't look quite like sencha to me though...
5. Korean green tea. "Snow" green to be a little more accurate. Somebody else might be able to help us flesh this out
6. The character appears to be 玄, "mysterious, dark". I don't know how helpful this is. Could be a name or could refer to a period of time? I'm probably totally wrong on my reading of this character.

Sorry I don't have too much to contribute, but I love following along with these translation requests that frequently pop up here.

Poohblah wrote:ok, so we have so far...
1. tieguanyin (light roast green oolong)
2. huangshan maofeng (a kind of chinese green tea)
3. some kind of green tea. Ure no cha, according to Drax
4. I can't read japanese, but the kanji say it's "healthy tea" from the "garden of fragrance and taste". Doesn't look quite like sencha to me though...
5. Korean green tea. "Snow" green to be a little more accurate. Somebody else might be able to help us flesh this out
6. The character appears to be 玄, "mysterious, dark". I don't know how helpful this is. Could be a name or could refer to a period of time? I'm probably totally wrong on my reading of this character.

Sorry I don't have too much to contribute, but I love following along with these translation requests that frequently pop up here.

Hehe... yes, its like watching a puzzle come together!

The branding on the TGY was a little strange to me - reads something like "hundred year respected family" I think. TGY dates to like 1725, so unless that can be read as "hundreds of years," they're either talking about something other than the tea, or their hyperbolic adjectives are uncharacteristically an underestimate!

Fook Ming Tong is a Hong Kong tea shop chain with some stores in the mainland.

Evan Draper wrote:The branding on the TGY was a little strange to me - reads something like "hundred year respected family" I think. TGY dates to like 1725, so unless that can be read as "hundreds of years," they're either talking about something other than the tea, or their hyperbolic adjectives are uncharacteristically an underestimate!

Its a very tiny package, about 10gm. Would that be a sample or do they usually come in such small packages?

Fook Ming Tong is a Hong Kong tea shop chain with some stores in the mainland.

Are they good? Or are they China's version of Teavana

Yeah, that's a single serving pack. Pretty common in "showier" teas to have a box filled with a bunch of those. I don't know anything about that store, really, but you figure China's version of Teavana has got to be better than ours.

As for the kyusu, it looks like a rough karakusa, or spiraling vine, pattern. I like it, actually It has a meaning like prosperity, long life. Auspicious.

I know a great site that describes it, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post links yet...

Maneki Neko wrote:As for the kyusu, it looks like a rough karakusa, or spiraling vine, pattern. I like it, actually It has a meaning like prosperity, long life. Auspicious.

I know a great site that describes it, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post links yet...

Can you *cough* PM *cough* it to me?

The pattern has a long history. I think it's fascinating, and reading about it made me appreciate my karakusa teacup even more.

Maneki Neko wrote:As for the kyusu, it looks like a rough karakusa, or spiraling vine, pattern. I like it, actually It has a meaning like prosperity, long life. Auspicious.

I know a great site that describes it, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post links yet...

... "go ahead, make my day!" Er, I mean, sure go for it.

Ok

http://www.heldermann-verlag.de/jgg/jgg ... gg0504.pdf