Trying to find a certain tea as a gift

Non-oxidized tea
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Mark O
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2023 2:07 pm

Fri Jan 20, 2023 2:16 pm

I am trying to find a specific tea. I was given a box of this from a friend's mom. It is very hard to find.
I would like to find where I can get the tea. It is from a town in China but I don't know where.
Can anyone tell me what the word in these pictures mean?
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DailyTX
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Fri Jan 20, 2023 7:17 pm

The tea seems to be Anxi TieGuanYin. Anxi is a county in China. The specific manufacturer will be difficult to find. Good luck tracing the manufacturer.
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Baisao
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Mon Jan 23, 2023 2:04 am

I noticed that this is posted under the “Green Tea” section. Tie Guan Yin is nearly always processed as an oolong.

Is this Tie Guan Yin a vibrant green color? Even if so, it’s likely still an oolong but the green color can help you determine the type of Anxi TGY you are searching for, though not the exact producer. TGY ranges in color quite a bit with fruit-like darker oxidation being more traditional than the floral green style.
Mark O
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2023 2:07 pm

Wed Jan 25, 2023 4:41 am

I am a tea noob. I assumed it was "green" tea based on the basic flavor. It's not black, lol.
Thank you for the feedback. If I find it, I'll let you know. It is absolutely delicious tea. Maybe I'll try to find some of the suggested types and see if they are similar, even if I can't find the specific manufacturer.
Mark O
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2023 2:07 pm

Wed Jan 25, 2023 4:46 am

Oh, also, if anyone can read the Chinese for me that would be helpful. Any of the words in the pictures would help me search this up. I got a few translated but not many.
It's become a bit of a treasure hunt for me.
Mark O
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Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2023 2:07 pm

Wed Jan 25, 2023 4:54 am

Sorry, another thing. Do the colors mean something? I see red, yellow, and green foil packets. Does this tell you somehting about the tea?
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Baisao
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Wed Jan 25, 2023 12:37 pm

Mark O wrote:
Wed Jan 25, 2023 4:54 am
Sorry, another thing. Do the colors mean something? I see red, yellow, and green foil packets. Does this tell you somehting about the tea?
Chinese and Taiwanese tea packaging is often generic. The packaging will be fanciful and show a lot more styling than a Western generic packaging but they are often just as generic. Custom packaging is expensive for a tea farm so they will buy nice looking generic packaging, the same as other farms are using. Some key words will be the same. You may find truly custom packaging for a manufacturer or wholesaler, but they are going to add additional costs to the product and there wont be as much assurance that you are getting what you paid for (perhaps they claim it is Anxi when it is really cheaper tea from Vietnam).

Other things you can ignore: someone billed as a master, fanciful stories about the age of the bushes, awards.

My suggestion is to find a trustworthy Western seller of green-style Tie Guan Yin (aka "Tieguanyin").

You can go here to look for vendors to try and ones to avoid: viewforum.php?f=17

HTH
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Baiyun
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Wed Jan 25, 2023 8:52 pm

@Mark O it seems like you just enjoyed your first tieguanyin oolong and may have assumed that this is a very specific tea from a specific source that comes in that very box, however, it is not.

You can get this type of tea from a thousand vendors, and also in higher quality than from these kind of gift boxes, so you do not need to search for this exact commercial product, you can just buy some tieguanyin from a variety of sources and further explore this tea type. That hopefully is good news. I have three versions of it in my cupboard right now.

Authentic tieguanyin teas from different sources will generally all taste a lot like this tieguanyin you have (provided it was a decent one), so the differences will be in the nuances, and how hard you can push the tea through water temperature, infusion duration, and number of infusions, with higher quality teas giving more without undesirable flavours coming out.

This tea is an oolong, which is a broad category of tea (tea type) specifically processed to be very aromatic, and oolongs range in oxidation level from being very green to very oxidised and heavily roasted. Tieguanyin comes in quite green (more of a modern twist on it) and in darker (more traditional processing), and it is likely you had a greener processed representation based on your description.

So you could go and find a reputable tea shop in your country, search for tieguanyin or tie guan yin, visually confirm that the little leaf balls are of a greener appearance (lighter green tones rather than very dark green or brown), and sample that. The origin should be Anxi county in Fujian Province, pickings ideally spring. I suggest you pick a tea shop that discloses this tea origin information with as much detail as possible to avoid getting low quality, imitation, or artificially enhanced teas. Don't care about packaging, just about a reputable source. It is often the inferior teas that are being dressed up to sell in the bulk gift industry.
Last edited by Baiyun on Thu Jan 26, 2023 10:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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