Where Do You Go For High Quality?

Guy Juan
Posts: 108
Joined: Mon Jun 17, 2019 11:22 pm

Fri Jun 21, 2019 1:39 am

aet wrote:
Thu Jun 20, 2019 11:32 pm
If 7$ for 100g 1tip 1 leaf grade and not in last years discounted price - that's very good offer .
"buy by taste" is to buy a sample. Pictures might be deceiving. Lots of light in the Light Box and tea looks very different on your table later during the day light , which also vary (temp. light ) .
Of course you can distinguish obvious colors and see if tea was light or dark oxidized , I wasn't about that. I was about those beautiful tipsy teas which not necessary have to be better than ugly / naturally ( in comparing ) looking tea leafs. Grade is a choice and also personal preference , not the major sign of the tea quality as all product, let alone that you would necessarily have to like it. To me top grade BLCH is has no "body" . tips are nice and mild taste, but I prefer bitter with sweet after taste like sheng puerh . Lower grade of BLCH have that, or tea like cui ming, which doesnt have that many tips either an bigger leafs are involved.
We have regular Kunming customers coming to shop , they usually buy lower grade for drinking and higher grade for giving a present ( coz look good ) ;-)
Same with black teas. All those tipsy beautiful teas are good seller but I like just ugly looking big leafs from arbor tea trees ( also promoted by some vendors like Gu Shu ) . The taste reminds me a black tea a use to drink in childhood. Those "tuned up" concepts of blacks for double price are not for me, and I have spent quite of the time in Fengqing to source the good ones.
Same with green teas like in Pu'er or Gen Ma , private producers or big factories. Im not green tea drinker so "unami" is not for me either ( if that defines green tea lover ) . I have tried matcha - too green for me.

As I said, there is no bad/ good choice. Just personal preference=choice. From marketing point of view I see on sales, that beautiful teas are always sell better , yet the experienced tea drinker will tell you that final taste is not about the "cover of the book".
No offense but I think you are completely missing my point. It’s not about being “pretty” it’s about understanding what you are looking at and deciphering the information about the tea.

Some people buy oily coffee beans because they are shiny, or because they think it means they’re fresh. These people are not informed and do not understand what to look for so yes...for these people they should not buy with their eyes. But for anyone that understands what to look at, and what different characteristics mean, it’s very important to look at what you are buying.

And I did not say $7 for 100g, I said one tea ($26/100g) was only $7 more than the cheaper one ($19/100g)

I think I have explained this very well so let’s just move on.
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pedant
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Fri Jun 21, 2019 2:26 pm

Guy Juan wrote:
Thu Jun 20, 2019 10:45 pm
aet wrote:
Wed Jun 19, 2019 9:42 pm
...
Yin - silver ( used for green and white tea , generally with lots of tips )
Jin - gold ( used for red (black) and sometimes shu puerh tea , generally with lots of tips )
Yu - jade ( used usually for green teas )
...
This is the info that should be pinned right on the front page of this site! These are the things newbies like me need to know to avoid a lot of confusion starting out. Thanks!!
check this out as well, very useful imo:

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

e.g. http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp/b ... n&define=1
Guy Juan
Posts: 108
Joined: Mon Jun 17, 2019 11:22 pm

Fri Jun 21, 2019 11:09 pm

pedant wrote:
Fri Jun 21, 2019 2:26 pm
Guy Juan wrote:
Thu Jun 20, 2019 10:45 pm
aet wrote:
Wed Jun 19, 2019 9:42 pm
...
Yin - silver ( used for green and white tea , generally with lots of tips )
Jin - gold ( used for red (black) and sometimes shu puerh tea , generally with lots of tips )
Yu - jade ( used usually for green teas )
...
This is the info that should be pinned right on the front page of this site! These are the things newbies like me need to know to avoid a lot of confusion starting out. Thanks!!
check this out as well, very useful imo:

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

e.g. http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp/b ... n&define=1
Oh wow this is excellent! Bookmarked and have been using it the past 30 minutes hahaha. Thanks Pedant!
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pedant
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Sun Jun 23, 2019 11:42 pm

Guy Juan wrote:
Tue Jun 18, 2019 9:22 pm
I found some suggestions from searching around in teachat (RIP) which led me to this forum. The mods suggested I check the “Vendors” section for high quality teas but that just seems silly considering they are TRYING TO SELL THE TEA! And I could not find the info I was searching for.
the suggestions from us on TF or from mods at TC?

just FYI, the vendor section i linked to earlier in this thread is Vendor Discussion & Recommendation, which is mostly normal members asking each other questions.
vendor members sometimes participate there too but only as individuals and not for self-promotion.

(there is another section of TF to which self-promotion is confined)
Guy Juan
Posts: 108
Joined: Mon Jun 17, 2019 11:22 pm

Mon Jun 24, 2019 6:02 pm

pedant wrote:
Sun Jun 23, 2019 11:42 pm
Guy Juan wrote:
Tue Jun 18, 2019 9:22 pm
I found some suggestions from searching around in teachat (RIP) which led me to this forum. The mods suggested I check the “Vendors” section for high quality teas but that just seems silly considering they are TRYING TO SELL THE TEA! And I could not find the info I was searching for.
the suggestions from us on TF or from mods at TC?

just FYI, the vendor section i linked to earlier in this thread is Vendor Discussion & Recommendation, which is mostly normal members asking each other questions.
vendor members sometimes participate there too but only as individuals and not for self-promotion.

(there is another section of TF to which self-promotion is confined)
I only saw the self promotion I think... I’ll check out the other one too. Thanks!
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debunix
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Location: Los Angeles, CA

Sat Jun 29, 2019 10:26 pm

Guy Juan wrote:
Tue Jun 18, 2019 12:17 am
My question is... it seems like every tea has something like 4 or 5 names. Then on top of that there is different spellings for each (like Biluochun, Bi Lo Chun, Pi Lo Chun). Are there certain words I should look for that will indicate the main varietals? How many main varietals are there? Like with wine you have cab sauv, Pinot Grigio, Merlot etc. I’ve seen a few for Chinese greens like Dragon Well, Biluochun, Long Jin. For Japanese I’ve seen Gyoruko a lot.
I spent a lot of time being frustrated by trying to match types of teas in two different books on tea to what I could find online, and then I went down the rabbit hole of trying to try each of the '10 famous teas' and looked at many sources and realized there are more than 10 different versions of the '10 famous teas' list!

Just want to say, you are not alone in that initial confusion.

I now go to many different sources for my teas, because I like some of nearly everything, and in my experience there is no one vendor who has the best of every type of tea in one place. But there is a lot of excellent tea out there from many sources. It just takes time, and a lot of small quantity orders and sharing impressions of the resulting tea in places like this, until it starts to make sense.
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