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Another day in Chinatown

Most gongfu sets are too expensive for my wallet but I found one for $15 that is slightly glazed red clay with tea boat and tray,six cups,teapot and gaiwan. The clay is thin and fragile and probably hot to the touch. This was the last set but more in about a month. I've got commercial packaging which shows gaiwan and cups on a boat. Maybe it is more common to use gaiwan than teapot. I've been looking for a good commercial brand everyday TieGuanYin. I found a 200g/$10 tin which is all Chinese inscription except for the brewing instructions which says can be done 10 times. I can't tell the name of the company. It is light green taste and infusion with some bush. It came in nitrogen pack. I got a 300g/$12 very ornate stamped silver tin of Taiwan Pouchong from Hsin Tung Yang. It is mostly whole slightly twisted leaf. It is my first cannister with Pouchong characters. It came in thick cellophane but inner lid and cap. It is comparable in quality too my local tea shoppe. I know anything I find in my Chinatown is a tease but I like to hunt and report.

Jim

Reply to
Space Cowboy
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Thanks, it encourages us to explore local brick and mortar shops when we can :).

Reply to
Bluesea

I think getting to know the local Asian shops is probably worth doing (I saw the iron Japanese pots this weekend for $30 instead of $60 plus the catalogues charge) even if one isn't in NYC, Philadelphia, or Chicago.

Reply to
Rebecca Ore

Unfortunately the local shops I have here are mostly Korean and they carry mostly the bigger brands like TenRen and the other one whose name I can't remember at the moment...mostly teabags and herbals that I'm not familiar enough to even think about playing around with. (Some of the herbals don't even have the ingredients listed, :( ) However I do find a few things, and at least they carry a matcha. Most of what this particular store has is Japanese though, and I prefer Chinese...but well darn it I can't have everything I want now can I? Lol! My main thing is, at least they carry half-way decent green tea from somewhere that isn't in a tea bag and that is sealed in a pouch.

But you should see the giant five-pound bags (full of air holes I imagine) of Chinese restaurant oolong tea....THin green plastic, it's like a bag of alfalfa or something...

Melinda

Reply to
Melinda

wasn't that a Phil Collins song?

Reply to
Falky foo

The lovely advantage of knowing your tea markets is that you can go there and find the actual price of the items before they "put them together" in a set. Most small cups go for like 1 or 2 yuan (1 dollar = 8.27 yuan..you do the conversion), a wooden tray can range anywhere from the lower end of 100 yuan upwards to 2000 yuan, the gaiwan usually goes, depending on quality, for 15-50 yuan, and your tools usually can be bought for under 50 yuan. We all know about how expensive pots can be, so I won't mention it.

What I'm getting at is you can usually get a full set at the market for much less by buying the pieces seperately.

Further evidence as to why an honest shop would do a killing....there's a serious lack of them.

Reply to
Mydnight

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