First time drinker looking for help on identification

[Zpro]

Hi everyone,
My first post as you can probably see on teachat... im from canada and have been drinking all teas (except pu) for a couple years now mostly green and rooibos. So slowly i gained interest in these weird collector tea cakes at the chinatown in montreal close to where i live, i decided to start ressearching key words like pu er and so on... So today for the first time i bought a TINY brick of ripe (cooked or whatever the proper term is not sure yet hehe) pu-erh and brewed it gong fu in my yixing cup and gaiwan i bought (first yixing as well) and i loved the taste: nothing like any other tea ive had, nutty and some kind of reminiscent smell of chopping down trees with my father in winter time (weird i know...). Thing is, i have yet to learn to read this beautiful language so i was wondering if someone could help identify the mountain of this little brick, i know the first two symbols mean Yunnan province its the mountain ones i cant figure out.

http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/3731/image2yx.jpg
http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/4424/image3ij.jpg

Thanks for reading,
Zach

[Chip]

Hi Zach, I was going to post your photos for you, but it seems they are too large. If you resize them to around 500-600 pixels wide, then bracket each url with the [img]your%20url[/img] code, the photos will post right on the forum.

Welcome to TC.

[nicolas]

Hi Zach

Welcome to the puerh journey! The manufacturer claims that the tea that you are drinking is made of wild organic (野生) spring tips (春尖) from Jing Mai (邁野).

I say "claims" because the tea seems too inexpensive to be true. It retails for 37 canadian centsin China.

Here are some closeups:

[Zpro]

Alright thanks for the info and the greeting Nicolas and Chip, so i guess i'm pretty easily impressed haha, i thought it was actually pretty good... Cant wait to get my CNNP 2002 and a couple samples and cakes i ordered off yunnan sourcing, hopefully i will enjoy those even more!

Also i was wondering while enjoying this tea: the gaiwan i bought is like a redish orange clay, but im not so sure anymore that its yixing because theres no stamp on the bottom... would it be bad if it was just normal clay? (heavy metals like lead are often present in clay i think...)

if no one knows whatever... just curious

Im so glad i found this forum, i will reap the knowledge available to me in this online community, the rapid responses are much appreciated!!

Zach

[jktea]

Hi Zpro,

Welcome to the Pu Er world.

I would recommend you to use a porcelain Gaiwan to brew such a young Pu Er, especially not so high temp water. 85-90 degree water is fine, to lower down the astrigency and improve the tea liquid sweetness.

The heavy metal does not exist in Yixing pot or the clay. The heavy metals （the lead) exist on the glaze.

[Zpro]

Ok thank you jk tea will do... I ordered a porcelain one from yunnan sourcing so perfect. My clay gaiwan does seem to have a glaze on it and after researching the possible different colors of yixing that are produced i have concluded it isn't yixing at all... is this really bad for my health?

thanks everyone,
Zach

[nicolas]

Hi Zach

As you have just arrived, do consider looking around before ordering in quantity from any particular vendor. See for example:

http://www.yunnansourcing.com/store/pro ... oduct=1001
http://www.jkteashop.com/embossment-dra ... =63_64_104

http://www.yunnansourcing.com/store/pro ... roduct=746
http://www.jkteashop.com/blue-landscape ... =63_64_104

[Zpro]

thanks for the tips Nicolas...
I ordered my gaiwan from yunnan because i was already buying some pu so the shipping was relatively cheap, because it was like combined i guess. I bought one with menghai logos on it and it was like 7$ (http://www.yunnansourcing.com/store/pro ... roduct=801) whereas on your sites the gaiwans themselves are cheap but the shipping to canada is like 20$...

I guess il look on several sites next time, but i thought yunnan sourcing had pretty good prices.

Thanks again,
Zach

[Sacha]

I ordered my gaiwan from yunnan because i was already buying some pu so the shipping was relatively cheap, because it was like combined i guess.

It's definitely the best thing to do, combined shipping rules!

[jktea]

Yes, it is true. Many of the clients have told me to have the SAL options in the delivery options. But this delivery way are really slow.

Besides, for the teawares, we need to pack them super careful, by using lots of foil bag to prevent them from any breakage. So now we will add the Hongkong air delivery without registeration option, which is almost the same price as the SAL. Thank you for the feedback on the delivery cost.

[Zpro]

Hey jktea,

Thanks for the feedback... Good initiative on the shipping but just so you know i wasnt saying your shipping prices were too high it was just for me at that moment i was already buying other things from yunnan sourcing, so the combined shipping was saving me alot...

I didn`t mean to insult your business in any way, sorry if i did.
I plan on purchasing some things from your store later on too!

Zach