A little Chinese

[puerhking]

Here are three sites that should get you where your going -

Bablecarp - use pinyin

http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

Chinese chat - you can put in the english or pinyin

http://zhongwen.com/chat.htm

Wiktionary - you can put in pinyin or the chinese character

http://www.wiktionary.org/

Here is an example of my typing in "shi"

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%96

of course you will need to have your computer set to see chinese characters

[MarshalN]

Ok..... there are some mistakes in this thread. Let's start with the basics

1) Please do NOT mistake two words with the same sound as being the same thing. If the characters look different, they are different words and have no relation to one another whatsoever. It's like saying "tee" and "tea" mean the same thing because they sound the same; they're not. So, for example, in the opening post, "chang" in this case can only mean factory. There are MANY words that have the sound chang. It can mean anything from "long", "factory", "to sing", "extend", "place", etc etc. The list goes on.

2) The temptation to read each word individually is great in Chinese, but actually, in many, many cases, "words" and "characters" are distinct. So, for example, "guo jia" is country and should be read together. "Guo" is also country on its own, but "jia" actually means home. If you read the two words individually, you will get "country home", which makes no sense. The proper way to read it is simply "guojia", country. This applies not only to lots of nouns, but also place names. Xishuangbanna is just one place name -- the words individually do not mean anything at all. Please do not try to decipher meaning out of these words individually, because no such meaning exist. All you'll get is something really weird.

3) Traditionally, Chinese is written from right to left in vertical lines. Nowadays, left to right in horizontal lines is more common. On a cake of puerh, however, it can go either way, and you basically have to have some basic understanding of Chinese in order to be sure you're reading it the right way. Otherwise it can give you nonsensical answers.

Now.... a few specific things in this thread

1) Qing cha 青茶

Qingcha can actually refer to two things these days. The proper definition of qingcha in a tea context actually has NOTHING to do with puerh. Qingcha is all types of semi-oxidized tea -- oolongs, basically. This term, even though it's the standard term of use, is now rarely employed. In the context of puerh (and puerh alone) it means raw puerh tea, not having gone through the artificial fermentation process.

2) Yiwu zhengshan 易武正山

Yiwu is the name of the mountain. Zhengshan, roughly translated, means "proper mountain", literally, and in this case means that this tea is from the proper Yiwu area, not some ancillary district that's closeby, or anything else. Of course, this is just a claim and many times such claims do not stand up to facts. The point is, zheng is not a peak in Yiwu.

3) To answer Salsero's question: If you see sheng anywhere on the cake but without the word "cha" following it, do not assume it's green puerh. It can be, say, "shengcan", which means "production/produced by". Or, it can be "shengtai", which is the Chinese equivalent of "all natural". Or, it can just be a place name, then all bets are off.

4) Factory names, these days, are generally written at the bottom of the cake. No guarantees

That's it for now.

[puerhking]

Ok..... there are some mistakes in this thread. Let's start with the basics

1) Please do NOT mistake two words with the same sound as being the same thing. If the characters look different, they are different words and have no relation to one another whatsoever. It's like saying "tee" and "tea" mean the same thing because they sound the same; they're not. So, for example, in the opening post, "chang" in this case can only mean factory. There are MANY words that have the sound chang. It can mean anything from "long", "factory", "to sing", "extend", "place", etc etc. The list goes on.

2) The temptation to read each word individually is great in Chinese, but actually, in many, many cases, "words" and "characters" are distinct. So, for example, "guo jia" is country and should be read together. "Guo" is also country on its own, but "jia" actually means home. If you read the two words individually, you will get "country home", which makes no sense. The proper way to read it is simply "guojia", country. This applies not only to lots of nouns, but also place names. Xishuangbanna is just one place name -- the words individually do not mean anything at all. Please do not try to decipher meaning out of these words individually, because no such meaning exist. All you'll get is something really weird.

3) Traditionally, Chinese is written from right to left in vertical lines. Nowadays, left to right in horizontal lines is more common. On a cake of puerh, however, it can go either way, and you basically have to have some basic understanding of Chinese in order to be sure you're reading it the right way. Otherwise it can give you nonsensical answers.

Now.... a few specific things in this thread

1) Qing cha 青茶

Qingcha can actually refer to two things these days. The proper definition of qingcha in a tea context actually has NOTHING to do with puerh. Qingcha is all types of semi-oxidized tea -- oolongs, basically. This term, even though it's the standard term of use, is now rarely employed. In the context of puerh (and puerh alone) it means raw puerh tea, not having gone through the artificial fermentation process.

2) Yiwu zhengshan 易武正山

Yiwu is the name of the mountain. Zhengshan, roughly translated, means "proper mountain", literally, and in this case means that this tea is from the proper Yiwu area, not some ancillary district that's closeby, or anything else. Of course, this is just a claim and many times such claims do not stand up to facts. The point is, zheng is not a peak in Yiwu.

3) To answer Salsero's question: If you see sheng anywhere on the cake but without the word "cha" following it, do not assume it's green puerh. It can be, say, "shengcan", which means "production/produced by". Or, it can be "shengtai", which is the Chinese equivalent of "all natural". Or, it can just be a place name, then all bets are off.

4) Factory names, these days, are generally written at the bottom of the cake. No guarantees

That's it for now.

Yes that was an unfortunate start wasnt it.....lol. I had good intentions and lots of ignorance............of which I have marginally less now. I wanted to get a dialogue going so people like you who have the expertise would jump in. So thanks for the corrections and the good info!

[Salsero]

I wanted to get a dialogue going so people like you who have the expertise would jump in. So thanks for the corrections and the good info!

And you performed a wonderful service, Puerhking! Thanks to you and thanks to MarshalN. I have learned a lot ... course when you start at zero, anything is a lot!

[puerhking]

I wanted to get a dialogue going so people like you who have the expertise would jump in. So thanks for the corrections and the good info!

And you performed a wonderful service, Puerhking! Thanks to you and thanks to MarshalN. I have learned a lot ... course when you start at zero, anything is a lot!

Thanks Sal! Im glad you have learned a thing or two. I have learned quite a bit since then....relativily speaking...of course.

[JAS-eTea Guy]

Outstanding!!! My knowledge of Chinese characters just increased my 300% or more. Previously, I only recognized the "cha" character.

Steve

[Salsero]

Thanks for resurrecting this one, Steve. Now maybe we will get another lesson.

[ndw76]

This is all very confusing. When I buy some of this tea I'm just going to get my Chinese-Thai in-laws to translate it for me, and then get my wife to translate that into English.