High Quality Tie Guan Yin?

Owes its flavors to oxidation levels between green & black tea.


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Aug 8th, '13, 03:29
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Re: High Quality Tie Guan Yin?

by JD » Aug 8th, '13, 03:29

$190-$450 per kg?

You guys obviously have way too much money to spend.

I think I'll just stick to the cheap stuff or stuff I've purchased. I can't taste a difference in quality anyway.

A bottle of wine can cost $2000 and taste like a $10 bottle.

Quality seems to just mean a price people who have more than enough money are willing to pay.

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Aug 8th, '13, 05:25
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Re: High Quality Tie Guan Yin?

by Tead Off » Aug 8th, '13, 05:25

JD wrote:$190-$450 per kg?
This is not expensive tea by most standard. Of course, if funds are limited, then it is expensive but it will be very difficult to find high grade teas at this price point although there are always inexpensive teas one could drink, never knowing what a great tea can be. But, there are many tasty, drinkable TGY's for not much money. Finding comparable Wuyi is not as easy.

Aug 8th, '13, 06:39
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Re: High Quality Tie Guan Yin?

by genushumanusalice » Aug 8th, '13, 06:39

I don't spend extra money on many things so I don't mind spending a little more on tea. I generally purchase teas in 50g packages so spread the cost out a lot. I don't like spending more and being disappointed though and I have a feeling that the $450/kg Tie Guan Yin that I can easy purchase in Australia will be overpriced for what it is. I'd have to purchase 100g to find out too which is why I'm here seeking alternatives online :)

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Aug 8th, '13, 08:29
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Re: High Quality Tie Guan Yin?

by jayinhk » Aug 8th, '13, 08:29

More expensive TGY really is better, unless you're getting hosed. It's best to try a variety to find your sweet spot. I just spent $18 on 75g of tea at Ying Kee at HK International Airport--I wonder if this thread made me do it. ;) I felt a bit silly spending that much, but then I realized 75g will make me 15 pots. That's just over a dollar a session. I'd spend a lot more than that on coffee, that's for sure.

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Aug 8th, '13, 20:26
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Re: High Quality Tie Guan Yin?

by MountainEd » Aug 8th, '13, 20:26

JD wrote:I've tried several different tie guan yins from green to lightly roasted, roasted, and high roasted, jade, grade A, and grade B. I'm curious if there's a high quality or really high quality type of tie guan yin? Like.. the best in China?

I should also mention that I'm not interested in aged or roasted teas. I want the best green TGY.

I drank my first Tieguanyin in '85 and have never been able to find one since as good as that original tin. Needless to say, it wasn't the modern green variety. But I've tried many, many brands since including a lot of the green style's. The best green TGY I've tried was from the Amazing Green Tea.

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Aug 9th, '13, 22:30
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Re: High Quality Tie Guan Yin?

by AdamMY » Aug 9th, '13, 22:30

JD wrote:$190-$450 per kg?

You guys obviously have way too much money to spend.

I think I'll just stick to the cheap stuff or stuff I've purchased. I can't taste a difference in quality anyway.

A bottle of wine can cost $2000 and taste like a $10 bottle.

Quality seems to just mean a price people who have more than enough money are willing to pay.

Granted I do not know what price range you have been buying your tea in, but just to clarify that is $19-45 for 100 grams, or $9.50-22.50 for 50 grams etc. When you start to shift the price down into quantities that most of us order at least to try to see if we really like it the prices are not that high at all. Honestly for a 10gram sample that is $1.90-4.50. Granted there is usually a small premium built into packaging in smaller quantities because more packing material and effort goes into it. But it is hard to find even Puerh samples (and puerh is close to as budget friendly as tea can get with some quality if you like that flavor wave) that are not priced in that area.

Aug 9th, '13, 23:46
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Re: High Quality Tie Guan Yin?

by TMike » Aug 9th, '13, 23:46

I'm also interested in this topic.

Anyone know/recommend the best green TGY you can buy in the US market, or Chinese vendors that ship to the US? price is not a problem, I'm mostly looking for quality. I've tried many varieties from VerdantTea, Yunnan Sourcing, Harney & Sons, Teavivre, and TeaSpring.

any recommendations are welcome.

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Re: High Quality Tie Guan Yin?

by AdamMY » Aug 9th, '13, 23:57

TMike wrote:I'm also interested in this topic.

Anyone know/recommend the best green TGY you can buy in the US market, or Chinese vendors that ship to the US? price is not a problem, I'm mostly looking for quality. I've tried many varieties from VerdantTea, Yunnan Sourcing, Harney & Sons, Teavivre, and TeaSpring.

any recommendations are welcome.
I am far from a Tie Guan Yin regular drinker. In fact for the most part I can get by with less than half a dozen sessions of it a year. I really enjoy it when I have it but I am usually satisfied for quite some time after a session ( at least in terms of TGY). But when I do get those cravings, my go to vendor is The Mandarins Tea Room. http://www.themandarinstearoom.com/

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Re: High Quality Tie Guan Yin?

by theredbaron » Aug 10th, '13, 06:27

JD wrote:$190-$450 per kg?

You guys obviously have way too much money to spend.

I think I'll just stick to the cheap stuff or stuff I've purchased. I can't taste a difference in quality anyway.

A bottle of wine can cost $2000 and taste like a $10 bottle.

Quality seems to just mean a price people who have more than enough money are willing to pay.
Wow, nice...

You were asking here about the best quality TKY here, and were told what that may cost you. I would suggest that you try to educate yourself about Chinese tea, before putting people down.
Some, by the way, are not rich by any means, but simply love good tea. There are many reasons why high quality teas are more expensive than low quality teas, such as rarity, the expertise of the farmer and processor that goes into making these teas, the hand work involved, etc.

As to tasting the difference - i may beg to differ here as well. It takes skill, learning and patience, not to speak of the best possible utensils, and high quality water.
If you use your chlorinated water from the pipe and grannies old pot with some filter, the fine nuances of top quality teas will be lost. That's why tea lovers try to find the best possible Yixing pots they can afford, try to source the best water, etc

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Aug 10th, '13, 07:15
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Re: High Quality Tie Guan Yin?

by jayinhk » Aug 10th, '13, 07:15

You also need to know what you are tasting (and feeling) for. How tea makes you feel is very important in Chinese tea culture. I just brewed up the TGY I bought at HK airport here in Bangkok (hi redbaron ;) ) and it's very good--better than I expected from Ying Kee Tea House. Great flavor, mild sweetness, no bitterness at all and very fragrant and aromatic with medium oxidation. I can comfortably say this is the best TGY I've had yet, but I tend to drink standard grade (for HK) TGY. I'm happy with my purchase, that's for sure. It immediately made me hungry and it has a good amount of caffeine.

I drank way too much 'Thai whiskey' last night and had a very rough time. Every time I have stomach ailments, oolong seems to fix me right up. I definitely drink more oolong than anything else nowadays, and TGY is one of my favorites, so it was money well spent. $18 really isn't expensive for 75g of TGY either, even though the stuff I usually drink costs half as much.

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Aug 10th, '13, 15:41
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Re: High Quality Tie Guan Yin?

by JD » Aug 10th, '13, 15:41

JD wrote:$190-$450 per kg?

You guys obviously have way too much money to spend.

I think I'll just stick to the cheap stuff or stuff I've purchased. I can't taste a difference in quality anyway.

A bottle of wine can cost $2000 and taste like a $10 bottle.

Quality seems to just mean a price people who have more than enough money are willing to pay.
So apparently my math was off on this, and I'm sorry for getting it wrong.

It seems $450 for 1kg of tea is equal to $22.10 for 50 grams, which is about what I usually spend on TGY. Anywhere between $10-25 on 50-100 gram amounts because I can't afford $450 upfront.

The $2000 per pound tea, however, is $222.20 per 50 grams. A bit steep for my wallet. It may be amazingly good, but just too much upfront cost. Maybe a 10 gram sample would be easier on the budget.

So again, sorry for jumping to a quick conclusion.

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Re: High Quality Tie Guan Yin?

by AdamMY » Aug 10th, '13, 17:11

No worries, and don't worry for many of us, the $2000 per pound tea is way out there as well. Part of me actually hates it when people quote prices per Kilogram. I understand why vendors do it, because they purchase the teas in that quantity. For most home gamers so to speak, we would only spend that money if we really really liked the tea and had tried it first, not to mention knew we could go through a kilogram of it in a reasonable amount of time.

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Aug 10th, '13, 22:56
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Re: High Quality Tie Guan Yin?

by jayinhk » Aug 10th, '13, 22:56

In HK and Taiwan tea (and many other commodities) are sold in 600g amounts, which is why you see 75 and 150g bags from these places. 500g is the Chinese standard nowadays. The places I buy my tea from usually offer no price break for 600g, so I almost never buy tea in that quantity for myself. I can buy as little as 30g for the same price per gram, so I try and sample widely.

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Aug 11th, '13, 00:57
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Re: High Quality Tie Guan Yin?

by JD » Aug 11th, '13, 00:57

These are the three Tie Guan Yin's I've recently purchased since returning to drinking tea.

- Jade Tie Guan Yin (link) ($15.10 per 50 grams, shipped directly from China)
- 2011 High-Roasted Anxi Tie Guan Yin (link) ($9.95 per 50 grams, shipped from inside the US)
- Grade B Dark Roasted Tie Guan Yin (link) ($4.95 per 25 grams, shipped from inside the US) Note: Though it says "Grade B" the package they sent it in said "28 grams" of "Grade A". Maybe it's wrongly named.

I thought I'd like the roasted ones but I don't. I actually prefer the Jade over the others. Infact, I prefer the green Dong Ding I bought from Teaspring over the roasted TGYs.

A KG of the Jade stuff would run $302.00 so it's "kinda" pricey.

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Re: High Quality Tie Guan Yin?

by jayinhk » Aug 11th, '13, 15:30

If you want to buy a small sample of guaranteed 'good' TGY try Tim's Mandarin Tea Room in NYC. He ships nationwide and he is a connoisseur in many different fields. I think trying some of his TGY would serve as a good benchmark for which to compare other stuff you purchase.

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