Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
It is great to know that there is one more person paying great care in maintaining the quality of your tea collection, coz there aren’t many.
The vacuum + quick freeze method had been practiced by the tieguanyin makers for quite many years, but the shelf life isn’t that much longer than that of those green teas that are just stored chilled. A packer once propose to me the use of nitrogen-filled pack and chill. The Japanese use silica gel and chill… there are different practices and all with something in there.You are right in pointing out that moisture is an issue. I’ll certainly write more about that, but I am not sure if that is the only thing that makes a green tea fade. Most green tea are dried to a standard of 5~7%, but they still fade within a vacuum pack. I think it simply isn’t a great topic enough for scientists. At least not until some of them find out how good fresh green teas are.Agree. However, a visit to the workshops there is good education for preparing yourself as a better trader for the products.
That’s correct. Although keeping tea in the freezer does keep the color for a much longer time, the tea would degenerate much more rapidly upon return to room temperature. This is a topic that concerns freezing technology and we have not found any scientific documentation yet concerning similar topics. All we have written is from what we have observed and experienced. I hope with the hopeful increase of the general consumption of finer green tea, corresponding research in the issue can be addressed and we can have fresh green tea supply all over the world all year round. I think the this would involve only a simple application with existing technologies, but the costs of it is barring small producers from trying it. The catch is, almost all finer teas are produced by smaller producers.
Bai Mudan is actually a bit different from Shoumei. For the limited understanding of you through the description, I think the former is more for you than the latter. As to what makes bouquet style dancongs a tea better than so many others in clearing blockages, I really don’t know. I have been turning hundreds (literally) of research papers on the analysis of tea compositions and really none explains much about the medicinal differences different teas have. All we have been telling the readers in terms of TCM properties are actually pretty much from our experiences with ourselves and our customers. We have discussed some tea TCM logic with a few very prestigious TCM doctors and they have been supportive and in agreement, but lot of TCM doctors aren’t even aware of that. We have administered certain combinations to different customers with extremely high success rate, and think more people should should be aware of that. We actually have more followers who are Western doctors than TCM doctors, to be honest. We have some theories, but need some concrete data to back up before we can say things more “scientificly” in Western terms. Hopefully you’ll see an article about that in a few months.
Generally shu pu’er is a safe tea for most. However, from your description it seems like you should avoid using it solely as your daily tea, particularly if you do not exercise regularly. However, if your diet involves quite an abundance of grease and meat, you’ll need the pu’er to maintain lower cholesterols. In that case, employ another tea as your regular so you are drinking at least two types of teas of complimentary TCM properties. Baimudan and Dancongs are good options. Use fresher ones if you can find them. In addition to “Litchee” dancong, there is another group that are floral and would drive away the “blockages” more effectively, they are the bouquet ones I discussed in this Tea Guardian article: https://www.teaguardian.com/Tea_Varieties/oolong_phx_bouquet.html
The real big problem is not the route or finding a courier, but rather packing the products safely. You have to work out with your supplier on that before sending the things for shipment or courier.
Shipping cartons to outside of China is quite convenient using international couriers, except for the unbelievably high rate. Use local couriers if any would cover your destination, but be warned that some deliver only to the port, or their own warehouse.Sheng puer is good for some people, but definitely not this old gentleman I mentioned. The coldness of this tea would further trap his dampness. He would then develop cold-like symptoms and would be over sensitive to lower temperature and wind. The best solution would be to see a good TCM doctor to first drive out the dampness before any fortification of the qi. Meanwhile he should stay with my tea suggestion, and a healthier life style.
I have one such tea ball from a trade friend and not quite sure if I am able to source the tea for any purposes in the coming few months. Korean teas have always been extremely expensive to get and not a great idea for trading. I’ll update the status anyway if I get any.
If you want good sweetness but not extra tastes to distract the tea, use white crystal sugar, the next best is rock sugar, like those that we have in our grocery stores in HK, if you are familiar with this place. Grind the chunk a bit before trying to dissolve it. Or use low fire to dissolve it, but not over cook to brown. I have written a bit about it in the ice tea special feature.
