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Re: Cheap Chinese Green Tea?

Posted: Nov 12th, '13, 13:34
by debunix
Yunnan greens can be uniquely, delicately floral but most of those I've tried also have an edge that is missing from more traditional greens. Sometimes I enjoy them very much, sometimes not so much.

I've had very good luck with YS 'Oriental Beauty' oolong and also their Imperial Anxi TGY. Haven't tried too many of them mostly because I go to the site with puerh on the brain.

Re: Cheap Chinese Green Tea?

Posted: Nov 12th, '13, 20:54
by Teaism
There are $5 and $500 bottle of wine and both are priced competitively. Perhaps the answer to cheap green tea lies in between both of these two scenarios. :D

Re: Cheap Chinese Green Tea?

Posted: Nov 12th, '13, 23:32
by Puerlife
I've been poring over teachat threads for several months, mostly over at the pu-erh forum, so it is a pleasure to finally starting posting and get responses from debunix and teaism, among others, from whom I have already learned so much! I will definitely try the Oriental Beauty and Imperial Anxi TGY and ponder the value (along with the price) while enjoying them with hopefully a modicum of mindfulness. :D

Re: Cheap Chinese Green Tea?

Posted: Nov 13th, '13, 03:56
by Mureke
I'll be very interested to hear how the greens turn out! If nothing else, Yunnan greens provides reference points. It helps identifying flavors in other greens.

The Gao Shan oolong of YS is a little bit more oxidized than your "nuclear green" Taiwanese oolong, lacking many of the corresponding characteristics. However, it's very milky and has a reliable good hui gan with many, many brews. It's worth getting 50 g of this, although it doesn't come vacuum-packed.

The premium Ben Shan is the most buttery oolong I've ever had. There is no bitterness, either. I haven't found any complex flavors in this one, though. Just the cool mouth feel.

The light-roast premium TGY is too roasty for my taste. You can easily get bitterness. However, there is a nai xiang that follows. I get a recurring hui gan an hour after drinking the stuff.

I have yet to try the Huang Jin Gui. The autumn silver needles are not recommended unless you really like hot dogs.

Re: Cheap Chinese Green Tea?

Posted: Nov 13th, '13, 11:56
by Evan Draper
Mureke wrote:The autumn silver needles are not recommended unless you really like hot dogs.
:shock:

Re: Cheap Chinese Green Tea?

Posted: Nov 13th, '13, 12:15
by Chip
Evan Draper wrote:
Mureke wrote:The autumn silver needles are not recommended unless you really like hot dogs.
:shock:
I can actually relate to this, though I did not have this selection from YS. I had a tea called "Jade Pole" which is one of few green teas I could not drink. Brewed, it smelled like a hotdog complete with a bun. bleh. Once I made the association, I could not get it out of my head for this tea. :roll:

Re: Cheap Chinese Green Tea?

Posted: Nov 19th, '13, 14:44
by AlexZorach
I've occasionally had very good Chinese green tea cheap. The best green teas I've had in the low end of the price range have all been from China.

The rock-bottom, dirty-cheap example that I recently tried was Yun Wu (Cloud Mist) from San Francisco Herb Company. You need to buy a pound (a friend did and shared some with me), but it's under $10 a pound. And it's really quite good--in my opinion better than some teas that have cost around $5 for a 1/4 pound.

The next-cheapest green teas, which I thought were even better than the Yun Wu, were sold in a box in Chinatown. The importer name was Starway, but this isn't written on the box; they're effectively presented as brandless. Here's a pic of the box if you want to keep an eye out for them. The two teas I liked were their Huang Shan Mao Feng and Bi Luo Chun. I did not enjoy any of the other teas from this same company, so I would not recommend purchasing any teas other than these (they also sell a generic green tea, and some oolongs, which I thought were terrible; I haven't tried their Pu-erh or white tea). These both cost about $4-5 for 6 ounces.

If you want to go just a notch up from these in price, I've had very good experiences with the cheapest of the Chinese green teas sold by Upton Tea Imports; they even carry quite a few that are both inexpensive and organic certified. My favorite was probably the Chun Mee Dao Ming. This time of year it's sold out, but they do still have a few samples in stock, and that's a tea they've carried for years and restock regularly so I don't think there's much danger of it being discontinued. It's a very bold-flavored, strong green tea, but one of my favorites in the low end of the price range. The Chun Mee Moon Palace I also thought was good...a similar tea, but I don't like it quite as much as the Dao Ming.

Re: Cheap Chinese Green Tea?

Posted: Nov 19th, '13, 22:59
by chrl42
If you seek a cheap Chinese green, I suggest to find 'less' famous ones..there are many good cheap ones which have relatively less fame than Longjing, Biluochun, Huangshan Maofeng, Zhuyeqing, Tai Ping Hou Kui and An Ji Bai Cha (these ones have pretty fixed prices).

Price and quality are related but often not accurate. It depends on advertisement of regions,

For example Chairman Hu Jin-tao is from Anhui, after he took over the control, he did a little ad to Anhui greens, especialkly Tai Ping Hou Kui. And the price went up.

Zhuyeqing was born during 70s, not traditional so to speak, but Sichuan goverment advertised this tea at best, now Zhuyeqing's price is uncontrollable.

Longjing and Biluochun got its fame after Qing emperors approved its qualities (Qianlong and Kangxi), before that Hangzhou wasn't so known for green at all. (The traditional famous green regions were Wuyi mt., Yixing and Jianzhou etc)

But I do believe Anji Baicha speaks for the price..they are pretty organized in production (just my opinion!)


There many other regions less known but produce awesome teas.....like Lushan Yunwu, Mengding Ganlu, Fujian Gaoshan greens, Nanjing Yuhua, Kaihua Longding etc..

Re: Cheap Chinese Green Tea?

Posted: Nov 21st, '13, 00:39
by beachape
I agree with the suggestion to search for "non-famous" Chinese greens when looking for cheap tea. Any of the 10 famous Chinese teas are very hard to get authentic and quality versions without breaking the bank. The Chinese domestic tea market values scarcity much more than quality IMO. However, there are many great teas that aren't quite as sought after that can be had dirt cheap because the relative cost of labor per USD (for good or bad) is very low in china.

I've had teas in china that were 1$ USD per 100grams that rivaled some teas 20x their price; only you would never give them as a gift because they were "no-name" grocery store teas.

Re: Cheap Chinese Green Tea?

Posted: Nov 21st, '13, 05:56
by Mureke
Going for less famous teas has sound logic. However, can one find good stores on the net outside the US? The prices on Teaspring don't seem all that low if you look at their Meng Ding Gan Lu, for example.

Another strategy for cheaper teas could be to get teas harvested a bit later on in the season - you pay a premium for pre-Ming tea that doesn't necessarily correspond to an equal increase in quality.

Re: Cheap Chinese Green Tea?

Posted: Nov 21st, '13, 12:50
by Chip
Cheap Chinese tea can be ... dangerous. There are times that substandard or contaminated or defective or simply old tea is sold off on the very cheap to willing wholesalers/brokers, etc.

Greed motivates some brokers/dealers to buy it up and still sell it cheap while making very large profit margins.

I recall years ago, one Chinese seller of tea had a very large lot of their tea rejected by Germany due to contamination, they shrugged it off and simply sold it to large US buyers. It happens, and it is indeed frightening.

This happens for various food items from China. For instance, check out honey fraud from China which was 100s of millions of dollars worth of basically fake honey ... quite unsettling!

I will NOT be buying cheap Chinese tea ... ever.

Re: Cheap Chinese Green Tea?

Posted: Nov 21st, '13, 21:13
by chrl42
Chip wrote:Cheap Chinese tea can be ... dangerous. There are times that substandard or contaminated or defective or simply old tea is sold off on the very cheap to willing wholesalers/brokers, etc.

Greed motivates some brokers/dealers to buy it up and still sell it cheap while making very large profit margins.

I recall years ago, one Chinese seller of tea had a very large lot of their tea rejected by Germany due to contamination, they shrugged it off and simply sold it to large US buyers. It happens, and it is indeed frightening.

This happens for various food items from China. For instance, check out honey fraud from China which was 100s of millions of dollars worth of basically fake honey ... quite unsettling!

I will NOT be buying cheap Chinese tea ... ever.
Right. I didn't mean supermarket teas at all.

If one has a chance to visit China and think about buying teas...I urge to visit Wu Yu Tai or Tenfu kind of places rather than supermarket..hehe :mrgreen:

Re: Cheap Chinese Green Tea?

Posted: Nov 22nd, '13, 09:33
by MEversbergII
Alex, I had noticed that Yun Wu in general was inexpensive. I guess because they tend to be wild trees?

Thank you for the link, though, that's the first time I've seen Yun Wu from a U.S. retailer.

M.

Re: Cheap Chinese Green Tea?

Posted: Dec 12th, '13, 07:48
by Puerlife
Scott posted this today on Facebook:
120 hour sale starts now! 15% off all Green and White teas on both yunnansourcing.com and yunnansourcing.us! Enter code: LUCKY15

Good timing for me because I was just about to put together an order. :D

BTW, has anyone got an opinion on his matcha?

Re: Cheap Chinese Green Tea?

Posted: Dec 12th, '13, 09:11
by William
Puerlife wrote:Scott posted this today on Facebook:
120 hour sale starts now! 15% off all Green and White teas on both yunnansourcing.com and yunnansourcing.us! Enter code: LUCKY15

Good timing for me because I was just about to put together an order. :D

BTW, has anyone got an opinion on his matcha?
+1

Thanks for the tip :D !