Yunnan Tuocha

[MarshalN]

I think for puerh there is no hard and fast rule as to which one is really better quality. Partly it's because most of the times they are blended with different kinds of leaves, so a tasting is almost always necessary to determine the real quality. Also, sometimes factories will use nice young buds as the cover, but what's inside the cake is not quite so good looking.

[illium]

Yes, I completely agree w/ Marshal.

For Pu Er, the blend is very important. Getting a nice balance to the various flavours of the different leaves to create the correct end product is the key. Consider it like a cuvee in wine.

That said, typically, the downy young buds are considered higher quality in the white/yellow/green tea world, and it would seem to indicate that a Pu Er blend including such leaves was made from higher quality tea in the beginning, and would likely yield a better end product.

All of this is still subject to your personal tastes, as opposed to some objective market value determination for sales price... so let your tounge decide for you, what is good quality or not!

hth,
Troy

[Phyll]

Got it! Liking the taste is the key...I agree. But let's say I can't taste it because I'm buying the stuff online, can you opine on the way it looks below. Lot's of hairy leaves. Thanks.

[MarshalN]

Looks all right from that photo, but doesn't look great. What sort of info are they telling you? Is there a pic of the whole cake?

[Phyll]

Yeah, here you go:

http://cgi.ebay.com/2005-6-Famous-Tea...

[MarshalN]

Interesting. 2005 eh? Looks a little dark, then again, it could entirely be the picture and not the cake.

I honestly don't know what to tell you. 21+6 seems slightly high for something you've never seen or tried. Have you tried making them an offer instead of the price? Maybe they'll take less....

[kodama]

I bought a cheep Xia Guan (? - has red/white crane) tuocha. It looks similar to the darker of my CNNPs, cooked?

[kodama]

Hrm - I think that there is something odd. It is labaled Yunnansheng (raw?), but does not quite look it, and the logo on the inside does not look like any of the iamges I found online...

[MarshalN]

That "sheng" is province. It says "Yunnan Province Xiaguan Tea Factory produced". Nothing to do with raw or cooked, and it looks cooked.

In fact, no puerh tea I've seen says raw or cooked on their packaging, unless it's been repackaged by a reseller.

[kodama]

What about the different logos and brands?

[illium]

well.. the characters on the paper wrapping don't say much. it's not a xia guan wrapper. the characters say it's from kunming, yunnan, and that it's a mid grade (on either side of the center, you'll see the chars zhong (中 middle) on the left and ji (级 grade) on the right. ) The two characters under the logo pictures are not clear enough in this picture to make out. it COULD be Jin Gua, but I can't really see the second character well enough to read. It looks like it might be Gua. Anyway, Jin Gua = Golden Melon, however these are not Golden Melon brand wrappers either. They have a different logo.

So to be honest, I can't tell what brand it is. Either it's a Xia Guan or Jin Gua wrapper that I haven't seen before, that is completely different from thier normal wrapper (and lacking thier company name..) which would be very surprising, or it's some generic knock off company.. Either way, it's definately fraudulently packaged in a box bearing Xia Guan's name on the outside, when the tea is almost certainly not Xia Guan.

If you wanted to give it a brand name, the characters along the bottom are Kun Ming Hua Yuan Cha Chang Chu Pin. So the brand could jutst be Hua Yuan brand.. which would translate to "Flower Garden".. but again.. I've never heard of that before.

Also, it's Shou Pu Er (cooked), not Sheng (raw). Marshal is correct when he says they rarely if ever state on the packages anywhere, wether the tea is cooked or raw. You will often see the Sheng character used in conjunction with some other character for a different meaning, which causes confusion for non-Chinese speaking people who have learned that this is the character for raw pu er, and assume if they see it, it's raw pu er.. unfortunately it's a very common character that is used in many ways in conjunction with other characters.

As Marshal said, in this case, The writing on the outside of the box (in roman letters) that says Sheng is referring to 省, the character for "province", and means YunNan province. The character for raw pu er is 生。

I'll try to dig up some more information on that tea, but it could just be a mystery pu er. There is soemthing nagging me about that logo though.. it's really very familiar.. I feel like I should know the company, but it has slipped my mind.. Maybe I'll remember later.

Hope that helps,
Troy

[illium]

Ok, a little research shows that Hua Yuan is a Pu Er factory in Kunming, established in 1988. Other than that I know nothing about it. But at least we've correctly identified your tou cha, for what it really is..

Enjoy!

[kodama]

Wow. Well, thanks. I'll give it a try.

[MarshalN]

Actually, illium, it's not Zhongji 中級 that's written on the wrapper, but jiaji 甲級, which means A-grade. Look carefully

These grades mean also nothing. Everyone says their tea is A-grade, or special grade, or select grade, or tribute grade, or whatever. None of which should be bothered with.

[illium]

haha! of course you're right, marshal!

i read it too quickly, and the picture's not very clear.