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Sau Mei is usually made from the same kind of tea bushes as those for White Peonies, except that the former kind of tea is processed through a hasted process for oxidizing the leaves. Higher quality ones do have silvery leaf buds like those in White Peony so it is tempting for some traders to sell them as the more expensive version.
Sau Mei is used extensively in dim sum restaurants for its lower price. Although the best of this tea variety is really quite cheap, the lowest grades are used most of the time for better margin. Having said that, however, it is perhaps the safest tea to choose when you happen to dine in one of these. It is produced quite automatically so less chance for unwanted contamination in case it is not a proper production setup. It is also TCM neutral and tastes okay with most food.In terms of choosing a White Peony to buy, please do refer to related pages in the Tea Guardian so you are not falling into traps. Remember to examine the photos there carefully for the look:That is so true. There simply is too much noise out there. I think one reason for this is that some people want to muddle the distinction between things so they can sell their less than genuine products with a good name. This is projecting a wrong image of a category and can kill it. They have hurt white tea so badly, and it seems people are eyeing oolongs now. The only way to counter these “category” killers is to promote genuine quality to as many as possible. On one side we are against mega beverage player like who you know, and on the other, small shops who are trying to sell anything they got hold of to sell at whatever margin they could in whatever name they want. There really are a lot of BS selling junks in some sites in the US.
Clairelie, the two photos u posted here are of very nice handcrafted workmanship. They look like nice tea ware. However, the two links you listed carry only factory made products, most of which are widely available in most cities in Mainland China. Many factories make them.
While there are nice handcrafted tea ware made in Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and jiangxi, they are not as commonly seen in internetshops. I am not too familiar with the overall picture though, hope some other readers could help u out on this one.Caffeine is diuretic, so it encourages excretion of water through the bladder. However, that is only one side of the picture.
Green tea may encourages urine, but it is not loaded burnt carbon like coffee is, so it is not TCM hot. Coffee is TCM hot so it encourages the fire energy while lowering your yin energy. You feel hot at the lis and tongues, sometimes maybe the eyes too, feel energetic sometimes, but down very easily.Although most teas are diuretic, but not as many can help to dissipate humid toxins. To facilitate the body to dissipate humid toxins in a person who has been affected through exposure to TCM hot intakes, such as coffee, it’ll require some substances that helps the cells to expel water and/or unwanted lipids mistaken trapped in or near themselves. Only Phoenix oolongs or Wuyi dried with low fire (but really completely dried) can do the job.Sorry I have not been attending to this forum for a few days. The link to the picture you posted is not working…
That’s philosophical. However, I do think it is time the industry in China think clearly of a way forward.
While domestic consumption is able to sustain a rising price for now, this is not going on for too many years. Export will be taken over by productions in other regions, though not the same quality. I have been thinking about the issue for some time and think that a rising salary for the worker is only reasonable. We don’t enjoy our fine taste basing on exploitations of others.However, the hard truth is, there are many production countries where the pickers are still paid less than 2 USD a day, when there is job. I have an article the month before last on that:A couple of days ago, I had a very nice dinner with a friend from Switzerland who is an appreciator of fine wine. He ordered a 150 USD bottle and it’s gone just between the two of us. We were thinking if tea could have the same market acceptance, or even just one quarter of it, many people in the trade would be much better off.If this is to happen, are we, however, further financing the slave drivers in the majority of tea production countries? While it is free economy and the workers free to choose their work in tea productions in China, Japan and Taiwan, the situations in most others are less than humane.Where are we standing in this? I really don’t know.I think so too. Especially if the initial infusions are normal length, ie a few minutes. I think the liquid changes its alkalinity by the third or fourth round. Not good for weaker stomachs, nor as tasty anyway.
Rebaked oolongs, black and puer teas stands a bit better than white, green and green oolongs in this respect. Gongfu style infusion, where each infusion is much shorter, there can be a lot more rounds.Finer Dianhongs do have an innate floral aroma in them. However, there are also many black selections in the market that the merchants have scented naturally or with additives.
If it comes on too prominently, then it is likely scented.Whether a tea is “drying”, if I understand what you mean, how the whole body feel after the consumption, is dependent not only on whether the tea is high-short fire or low-slow fire, but also on the amount of caffeine, and the strength of the infusion. If you have the need for reducing the strength of this “drying” effect, brew your tea at a lower strength. Or switching to a tea with lower caffeine content and that can be infused in a shorter duration while still good taste.
Most normal baked style green tea is cool to cool-neutral in TCM nature, while a green style tieguanyin can be cold in TCM nature. I consider it “cold-dampness” evil rather than damp qi. Some green looking ones are fired extremely lowly and slowly so they are not so much that, but those that are really fresh and fragrant, and fired just lowly and shortly, are very much in that description.TCM warm ones may be dampness causing too and cooler teas can be great for dissipating dampness. The warm-cool nature is not related to the damp-“drying” nature.You should be very proud having been able to arrive at such observation by yourself.
