PLEASE HELP IDENTIFY THIS!

[NateHevens]

So I recently was given a gift. It was a very nice box with four tins of tea. Basically all of the writing on the box is in Chinese, so I cannot decipher it at all. The tea in the tins looks like Dragonwell to me.

So I posted on Stack Exchange looking for help because this forum was down for me for a couple days. They said the box advertised Songyang Silver Monkey. I know that's a white tea, but I'm pretty sure the tea that was nicely vacuum-sealed and placed in the tins is Dragonwell. I looked up Songyang Silver Monkey and I don't see how I could be confusing that for Dragonwell...

Here's a link to my photobucket album with the pictures I took. If you need more pictures or bigger pictures of anything specific, let me know, and I'll update the album with the pictures.

Please help me figure this out.

Thank you.

[NateHevens]

... anyone? ...

[jayinhk]

It probably is longjing--sure looks like it, and both Song Yang Yin Hou and Longjing come from the same province of China. Maybe they just used the cans they had to make you a gift pack. You may want to stick three cans in the fridge if its good tea as longjing deteriorates pretty quickly. I'm surprised the tea isn't sealed in bags within the cans though...

[NateHevens]

It probably is longjing--sure looks like it, and both Song Yang Yin Hou and Longjing come from the same province of China. Maybe they just used the cans they had to make you a gift pack. You may want to stick three cans in the fridge if its good tea as longjing deteriorates pretty quickly. I'm surprised the tea isn't sealed in bags within the cans though...

Um... actually, they were. I opened the bags to pour into the cans to get the picture, then put the tea back in the bags. Sadly, I can't say the bags are "resealed" (they were vacuum-sealed), but I did my best to keep them closed.

[Drax]

It's an odd box... that first picture that says "Pier Cheng Nan Xiang" -- that's not what those Chinese characters say... so that's interesting.

The other characters do indeed say song yang yin hou... (松阳银猴), I think those characters are on your second picture at the top (and they're also on the pictures with the really fancy metallic lettering, just cursive style).

Agree with both of you... does not look like the yellow tea. Looks like a typical long jing.

[NateHevens]

Anyone else?

I'm setting up a cold-brew of the first tin of tea tonight... I'll let y'all know how it comes out, probably on Sunday, July 3rd (it's now July 1st, 11:48pm my time).

[Dingshu]

According to the large label, it's from Zhejiang Province, Song Yang County, and produced by the Song Yang County Luzhen Fruit Company.

The large label says the tea is good for 12 months after the production date printed on the package.

Here's a website in Chinese with a long description of Silver Monkey tea. It's too long for me to translate, but Google Translate may help you.

http://ci.chadaowang.com/baike/show.php?itemid=126

[NateHevens]

Update:

It's definitely Longjing. The cold-brew on it was very good, but very much Longjing. I have enough that I'll be cold-brewing more soon and it will last well into winter, when I start brewing hot again. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out hot.