Please help identify tea by its look and description?!
Hi,
The people I know went to China and bought 2 teas for me. They are not experts in tea so the purchases were relatively random. The first tea turned out to be a Pu-erh of great quality, this tea is awesome. While the second one is strange, I can't identify it and it raises many questions.
Firstly, the box looks nice, it has various Chinese writings on the box and was vacuum-sealed. However when I asked help from people who know Chinese, it turned out that one character means "tea" and the others are various adjectives like "extraordinary quality". None of the characters has even a slightest hint about the type of tea or it's manufacturer or the area of origin (province).
Now as for the tea itself, here are some photos
- the prepared tea
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14241787/IMG_004…
- tea box, in case you had one too :)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14241787/IMG_004…
- inside the box
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14241787/IMG_004…
- closer look at the tea
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14241787/IMG_004…
- sticks?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14241787/IMG_004…
Below is some other stuff I managed to identify but I am definitely not an expert in this area so all the stuff below is questionable. However may be it will be helpful.
Not knowing what the tea is I tried to prepare it as if it were black/red/etc -like tea (hot temperature, 3-5 minutes) without any luck, the taste and smell were completely absent. Well, then I tried to prepare it as if it were green/white tea (approximately 70C, 7-10mins), with some results: it has a taste similar to Silver Needles tea (that's white one) but much weaker. The smell is still almost absent.
Also I am pretty much confused by the look of tea leaves. Firstly they are a bit broken but that may be because of the vacuum packaging. Secondly it looks like a weird mix: it has almost all types of leaves and I don't understand this at all. While there are clearly seen some white-type leaves, you can also see brown and green ones. The Silver Needles tea I used to have earlier was not homogeneous either but it had like 1-2 green leaves per approximately 50g of great-looking non-broken white leaves. And lastly there are "sticks" in it. Not very many but they are still pretty common: I got the 2 sticks for the last photo within 5 seconds may be.
Please let me know what you think of it. As for me, the tea looks of bad quality and I am not sure whether it is white at all: if I were a pessimist I would say that some "company" just mixed left-overs of their normal teas and put it into a nice box. However I have little knowledge in the tea area and I would highly appreciate if you let me know your observations and conclusions. Thanks!
The people I know went to China and bought 2 teas for me. They are not experts in tea so the purchases were relatively random. The first tea turned out to be a Pu-erh of great quality, this tea is awesome. While the second one is strange, I can't identify it and it raises many questions.
Firstly, the box looks nice, it has various Chinese writings on the box and was vacuum-sealed. However when I asked help from people who know Chinese, it turned out that one character means "tea" and the others are various adjectives like "extraordinary quality". None of the characters has even a slightest hint about the type of tea or it's manufacturer or the area of origin (province).
Now as for the tea itself, here are some photos
- the prepared tea
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14241787/IMG_004…
- tea box, in case you had one too :)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14241787/IMG_004…
- inside the box
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14241787/IMG_004…
- closer look at the tea
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14241787/IMG_004…
- sticks?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14241787/IMG_004…
Below is some other stuff I managed to identify but I am definitely not an expert in this area so all the stuff below is questionable. However may be it will be helpful.
Not knowing what the tea is I tried to prepare it as if it were black/red/etc -like tea (hot temperature, 3-5 minutes) without any luck, the taste and smell were completely absent. Well, then I tried to prepare it as if it were green/white tea (approximately 70C, 7-10mins), with some results: it has a taste similar to Silver Needles tea (that's white one) but much weaker. The smell is still almost absent.
Also I am pretty much confused by the look of tea leaves. Firstly they are a bit broken but that may be because of the vacuum packaging. Secondly it looks like a weird mix: it has almost all types of leaves and I don't understand this at all. While there are clearly seen some white-type leaves, you can also see brown and green ones. The Silver Needles tea I used to have earlier was not homogeneous either but it had like 1-2 green leaves per approximately 50g of great-looking non-broken white leaves. And lastly there are "sticks" in it. Not very many but they are still pretty common: I got the 2 sticks for the last photo within 5 seconds may be.
Please let me know what you think of it. As for me, the tea looks of bad quality and I am not sure whether it is white at all: if I were a pessimist I would say that some "company" just mixed left-overs of their normal teas and put it into a nice box. However I have little knowledge in the tea area and I would highly appreciate if you let me know your observations and conclusions. Thanks!
Answers:
I can't open the pics. The cheapest white is Sou mei, If you see sticks, and the leaves are not homegenous, I would think is't sou mei. Bai mu Dan ( whtie Peony) is a decent one, but I think silver needle is superior. I think there is one other.
