A tael of puerh

Chinese.

I've no idea how common this unit is in non-tea spheres, but it's often used in 100- and 1000-tael sizes of compressed aged (or age-able?) teas.

/Lew

When used in reference to puerh logs, or logs of other Black (not red) teas, it is referring to an old form of Chinese money that was ~37.4 g of silver. A 1000 tael log was called that because it weighed the same amount as a 1000 tael bar of silver. These large logs were somewhat of a standard in their day. In modern times it is just a nickname corresponding to the size of the log although just roughly. You will notice that Scott's 100 teal log is not twice as heavy as his (2kg)50 tael log. He also has one 100 tael log that weighs 5kg and another that weighs 8kg. It has developed into little more than a marketing term, kind of like a cord of wood, how many people actually measure off a cord anymore? Yet a lot of people will call their dumptruck load a "cord".

The best one I have ever had was from a 1000 tael log and was actually a black tea not a puerh, the taste was very buttery and indeed was one of the best teas I have ever drank.

Mike

Tael in Mainland China equals 10 quan = 37.5 g (that is why many puerh cakes weight 375 g = 10 tael) In Hong Kong I think its 37.8 g. When you order shark fin soup in a good restorant they always say in the menu how many taels of dry fin was used. Also they use tael in traditional pharmacies.

Sasha.

I found another surprisingly good and full explanation of tael. It also shows the character (same as Liang - "two or pair" in contemporary mandarin).

I knew it was different in different parts of China, and there are several variaties of it. So, basically tael is a Chinese ounce. But 37.5 is what is used in Chinese pharmacies and teashops today.

Sasha.

"Space Cowboy" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Tael is Chinese, a very old, varying weight & denomination of money both (gold/silver in that weight). See , by which a tael would be 37.5 or 37.8 g, depending on the location of the vendor.

A catty is roughly half a kilo (now), but I think it's largely a coincidence, because the catty (Jin) as a weight goes back to the Chou period (see , "Gold scales in the ancient China"

HTH, Ozzy

Thanks to everyone for their tall taels. Also if you take the 1.2oz silver weight conversion and multiply by ten taels you get the also common 12oz/340g beengs even though you are getting short changed with this conversion rate. Since everyone is on a roll now one store in Chinatown has the qizi bundles lined up like bowling balls on a bottom shelf. Why the seemingly popular of shipment in seven pieces? I'll be sure to double check that vendor on Ebay and make sure what he means by a tael. How do you drank all of a 1000 tael buttery flavored black tea log? Those bundles look convenient for hanging. So should I slit the bamboo wrapping which seems tight or leave as is. On my recent trip to the South I'm sitting at a truck stop eating supper next too a trucker at the counter. Somehow we somehow started talking about smoke house restaurants and their seemingly disappearance. So he list all the ones he knew in Texas,Oklahoma,Arkansas which you could count on two fingers. If there was one near by I'd hang a few bundles in their shed. You can buy smoke house meats but where are the smoke houses?

Jim

Alex Chaihorsky wrote:

Well for one thing thats the way it is packaged at the factories, qizi are the defacto standard, boxs are the exception. There are 7 cakes to a qizi and 6 qizi to a case. Usually the loose ones you see in a store, that are not individually boxed, were originally in these qizi packages and simply unwrapped before going on the shelf. They also ship much better in the qizi with less damage to the flimsy paper wrappers.

I didnt drink the whole thing, I only got a portion of one from David Hoffman. His price was much much higher than Scott's. I have a picture of a girl standing next to a 1000 tael log and looking down into it. The log is about the diameter of her neck and is as tall as her shoulders.

I have bought several of the different 100 tael and 50 tael ones from Scott and this one was quite different. Here are two Japanese links that clearly show the type of 1000 tael log I am talking about made from black tea.

Mike

"Alex Chaihorsky" ha scritto nel messaggio news:kocIe.1377$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...

I just would like to add something to the very informative contents of the nationmaster encyclopedia.

The English word "tael" seems to come from Malay weight unit "tahil", maybe from Hindy "tolaa", and was adopted also for calling the "liang" used by Chinese traders.

The value of a "liang" in China underwent many changes in the course of time. It was 1/16 of a "jin". In the Ming dynasty it was 36.9 grams, in the Qing it was 37.3 g. With the first republic it was 31.25 g.

In the P. R. of China in 1959 they modified the rate between "jin" and "liang", changing the name in "shijin" (market jin) and "shiliang" (market liang), with 1 shijin (500 g) = 10 shiliang. In continentali China the word "liang" is still commonly used with meaning of "shiliang", corresponding to

In Taiwan the "jin" is 600 g, and the "liang" is still 1/16 of 1 "jin", corresponding to 37.5 g. While "jin" is TW still commonly used, "liang" is used only for gold and medicines.

Interesting parallel with Western measures. As I'm sure everyone here knows, a pound of feathers is actually heavier than a pound of gold. In troy units, used mainly for precious metals, a pound is 12 ounces of 480 grains each, for 5760 grains. Almost everything else is measured in avoirdupois, where a pound is 16 ounces of 437.5 grains each, for 7000 grains.

-DM

It gets worse. Ask Americans, Western Europeans, and Eastern Europeans how many watts are in a horsepower, and you'll get three different answers. They don't differ by much, but they differ enough to make you scratch your head.

--scott