Dominic: Is Zhang Ping Shui Hsian the same as Shui Xian?

I'm not Dominic, but let me take a shot. Upton habitually mangles transliterating Chinese into the European alphabet. They appear to be trying to use the older Wade-Giles system, which would spell it Shui Hsien, but I'm sure this is (to be pedantic, I'm using the Hanyu Pinyin system) Shui Xian.

On the other hand, the picture makes it clear that this is a very green version of Shui Xian, so Dominic wouldn't be interested. Probably I wouldn't, either.

Not usually, but sometimes. I've seen some extremely dark Shuixian bricks, by the way.

/Lew

Sometimes Shui Xian is spelled Shui Hsien (or I guess Shui Hsian) but no, Upton's really doesn't carry anything quite right. I'd say the only thing close are their stock oolongs (I think they call them oolong, fancy oolong, and choice oolong or something similar).

I don't remember ever seeing my name before in a subject, so I felt compelled to respond :)

I wasn't kidding or being persnickety when I said Upton's was lacking in a number of ways... I'd just ignore the whole Shui Xian thing completely if they are the vendor. It's really best that way. Shui Xian is generally pretty inexpensive from almost any vendor, myself and my wife really enjoy Teaspring.com 's Shui Xian, even over much more expensive offerings from other places... but I know you had issues with their site, basically go anywhere but Upton's for it and you should be OK. It should not be green-ish and it really isn't a tea that comes in bricks nor would it really benefit from that type of processing or storage.

- Dominic

The brick-format Shuixian I've tasted was really excellent. Judging by the taste profile you've specified more than once here, Dominic, I think you'd love it. Sadly, the vendor doesn't seem to carry it currently.

/Lew

Whoops, they *do* have it - I was looking under Wuyi oolongs when I should've looked under aged teas:

Disclaimer: The owners are friends of mine, but they charge me retail.

/Lew

I've had it and I do like it, but what I was saying is that the "brick" format doesn't do anything special for the tea... it's not like Puer where fermentation is part of the game or overly long storage (although I'd imagine a very old Shui Xian stored as such would be very good). I prefer the really heavily charcoal roasted Shui Xian which is almost charcoal itself, long storage would just softent he bamboo charcoal notes and it would never compress into brick form, it would just be debris. I've had some Shui Xian which was quite old and taken out of storage to be re-roasted and stored again repeatedly (I believe it was 16 years old), it was amazing. But again in brick form it wouldn't have worked.

I'd say if it is the only option and Upton's is the only option, then go for the brick option in this case. I'd still say picking up a good middle-of-the-road shui xian from almost anywhere else would be an upgrade though.

- Dominic

Here is some translated Chinese information:

At best a green Shui Xian. What next a green Darjeeling brick. Interesting Photo and Video links. Jim

On Nov 12, 1:08 pm, "Dominic T." wrote: ...Someone needs to protect Shui Xian with a logo...