My first puer from China

Space snipped-for-privacy@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com3/31/05

Jim,

What company in China sent you this tea, and how does it taste?

Michael

I was prepared for this. You know I can't proselytize tea companes here. If you plug 'smoked pipe tuocha' into Google a couple of companies will pop up. There is only one capable of filling the order. You'd figure with a tea moniker like that you'd have to remove the batteries from the smoke detectors. It is the smoothest most agreeable black puer I've tasted. Nothing like a pauper's puer for making oyster soup or tanning shoe leather. I haven't cracked open a tube of green bamboo puer. I think I can wrestle out the contents without destroying the potential flute. It is a BIG tube capable of holding far more than the 50g. I'll resuse and pack with other puer. I like the taste of the black Liuan if that wasn't their otherwise premium loose Grade A black puer which was more expensive. Interesting the infused leaf was a mix of green and black. You don't notice that in the basket. I was disappointed they couldn't fill the order for green Liuan mellon seed in a bamboo basket because I wanted to see if it was a puer or simply compressed. I'll keep checking back to see when it is available. My invoice number was over 5000 so they must be doing okay with orders. I want to say one last thing. When it comes to tea make up your own mind and don't believe what anyone says about a company and their teas. This is my first order off the Internet so flog me with a bamboo tube full of puer. My local tea shoppe made me do it.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote:

snipped-for-privacy@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com3/31/05

...I delete me...

I was prepared for your answer. I respect your feelings on the matter.

Michael

Space snipped-for-privacy@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com3/31/05

I'm not going to say anymore about this order here. I could but where is your fun of discovery if there is no mystery? It was a cheap dalliance into the mystery about bamboo puerh. When the streets melt from the latest unpredicted snow accumulation I'm off to the Indian stores in search of black salt.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote:

matter.

snipped-for-privacy@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com3/31/05

...blah blah blah...

Don't they use black salt to melt the snow on Colorado roads?

/Lew

Hehe, it was rated on my site over a year ago.

I would say more but this is just TOO easy....

Mike

I lied. Don't get spooked about that forboding FDA website for Prior Notification. It is a requirement for international mail and must be attached to the package. However all that is required is the Submitter and Recipient addresses, an estimated time of shipping, and a simple line item description of contents. In this case the company probably has automated software to take electronic billing information, generate the Notification from the FDA, and send with required Customs Declaration. All the rest of the spurious information is to facilitate Importer and Exporter transactions.

Jim

Space Cowboy wrote:

companes

snipped-for-privacy@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com3/31/05

Submitter

generate

facilitate

Having personally done at least a dozen of these so far I can say this. There is no automated interface to the FDA system yet. However once you "register" it is a quick and simple process. One thing that hampers some foreign companies is that you MUST have a US "Agent" in order to register a foreign company. This is not a big deal, I am actually an agent for one outfit (just as a favor, no affiliation), it is just an address that communications can be sent to by the government that commits to delivering those communications to the foreign entity.

However, the recipient can register him/herself and file the "Prior Notification" just as easily as the sender. I have done this several times when the Chinese fellows just couldn't figure it out. Often they speak just enough English to barely complete the transaction let alone navigate the US Bureaucratic red tape.

The whole Prior Notification regulation is being sporadicly enforced at the moment. Many shipments still make it through without delay, however I have seen some get delayed and even get "brokerage" fees tacked on at Customs. The threat of the package being confiscated is always there if the Prior Notification is not filed. This only applies to consumables, not accessories.

Mike

Any web based form with fill in the fields can be automated. That's the reason you sometimes are prompted to reenter the random generated characters from a graphic mosaic before you get to the form to stop such software. From what I've seen so far you can tell this wasn't the FDA's idea. It was some Congressional committee listening too so called terrorist experts. There is nothing in this process that prevents a company from sending me grasshopper gono or anthrax in my Oriental Beauty. I see a language difficulty because the FDA site is only in English. So the recipient can complete the Notification but the sticker still has to be attached to the parcel and recorded on the Customs Declaration. The Anticipated Shipdate clued me this is nothing more than locks on my house. They keep honest people honest. For foreign parcels I usually fork out for a tracking number. At least for international carriers you can find the location and status of your shipment. I just recently ordered some airline tickets online for my wife. 24 hours before the flight you print a boarding pass which confirms your seat assignment. You present the pass to TSA security with photo ID which allows you to proceed to the gate and board the plane bypassing any checkin. I still have that pass on my computer and could easily change the information which would allow me to proceed to any gate. I'm probably not going anywhere because I would have to know an unassigned seat and the boarding pass count wouldn't equal the passenger manifest. It probably would get me on the plane initially which I couldn't even do in the years before 911 because the boarding pass was issued at the gate.

Jim

Mike Petro wrote:

simple

probably

however

consumables,