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I think part of this happens because the tea shops themselves may not even know the difference. Case in point, for one Chinese tea seller on eBay with a quite large shop, a “white” Silver Needles was actually a green tea imitation. It looked exactly the same as a white Silver Needles, but with a green tint!
For U.S. buyers: on eBay, for 50g to 100g of white tea, a usual price seems to be in the range of $10-20 USD. Some special aged or premium quality white teas will cost more than this, naturally. But if you are paying significantly less than in this range, it is very likely that you are getting scammed with fake or low quality tea. If you find a reputable Chinese supplier on eBay, then you can have a reliable source of quality tea. Look carefully for a past history of good transactions, and also look for detailed photos of the actual tea leaves.
Thanks, guys, I hadn’t thought about the possibility that it may have been from the material of the tea bag itself. Very interesting information about the production process of roasted green teas, and it’s reassuring to know that there is very little oil involved.
To be on the safe side, I will avoid those Biluochun tea bags.
恭禧發財 🙂
These days, I think all major operating systems have some Chinese font (?), and all the major browsers will fall back to a font that has the required character. I think it will be fine, although it may make some people curious. The more discussions, the better.
“Heaven is to the left, Guangdong is to the right.” I think there is an old saying like that…
In Zhejiang as well, though, I saw an old woman who had just been hit by a car while she was riding her bike. She was laying in the street crying, with a little blood coming down from her forehead. Nobody really did anything to intervene, and just a few people watched. Eventually an ambulance came by, but people seemed more or less unconcerned by the whole thing. I’m not sure if they were afraid to help, or if they just thought it had nothing to do with them? A number of such cases have been big news items in the last few years.
Mainland China is a big mix of good and bad, a society full of contradictions, and with little rule of law. Eventually it will change, but those things take time. I wouldn’t worry about this copycat site, and I don’t think they can really cause any damage. If anything, having a copycat is just an indication that Tea Guardian is a success. No one bothers counterfeiting unless the original has real value.
Very interesting. I would guess that this has to do with the natural level of moisture in the air of the container, which would turn to a bit of frost while frozen, but condense into water when taken out of the freezer. That would lead to moisture being absorbed by the tea leaves, causing them to spoil. That is my best guess. I’ve had some tea in my freezer for almost a year, and the tea leaves always looks just as they did when I got them. I’ve been careful because I was not sure how much changes in temperature would affect the tea. Each time, I only have the container out for a few seconds.
For producers, one approach that may avoid the situation altogether, might be to vacuum pack the tea in order to suck out all the air (and therefore moisture) that would affect the tea during storage. Then the vacuum packed bag could go into an opaque container. Something like this approach might be pretty thorough in protecting the tea against issues of temperature/moisture and issues of light. I wonder if small producers could stockpile kilograms of tea like this if they needed to, and have very fresh leaves at any time? Maybe if the process were good enough, they would even start freezing the tea as a matter of course, following the production process?
Great, I will start with Bai Mudan to balance the pu’er, and then keep my eyes open for a bouquet dancong. I guess you are pioneers in the field of TCM and tea, which also makes you the experts (tea doctors?).
I think the confusion with Shuixian and “Water Sprite” probably comes from the meanings of its individual characters. When the two characters are together, the word refers to the flower. Interpreted apart from this, the two characters have the individual meanings of “water” (水 shui) and “immortal” (仙 xian). This reading of “water immortal,” although more colorful, is not really correct when the two characters are together.
Besides all of this, an immortal is not really a fairy, so it would still be a pretty bad translation. An immortal in Chinese culture is kind of a sage who has cultivated the Dao, and can live for thousands of years, ascend to the heavens, vanquish demons, help the ordinary people, etc. When living in the world, they often reside in the mountains and caves, away from society. Although unrelated to Shuixian, there is a wulong tea that is actually named after the immortals: the Baxian (“Eight Immortals”) Dancong.
Thank you very much! It’s always very interesting to learn about the relationships between tea and TCM. I will definitely look into the dancong wulongs more as a regular tea. I have some Bai Mudan and Shoumei, and those would probably be complementary. Is there something with bouquet style dancongs that make them especially good for clearing blockages?
