good pu on the cheap

Rick, re-read Cowboy's post - he was talking about Chinese green puerh that he bougught recently. Certainly one can imagine any horror one is capable of imagining, but we are talking about a concrete tea here.

Sasha .

Forester wrote Hornblower (superior to O'Brian, IMO).

BTW, another thought came to my mind (thappens to me lately :)) - There is no limit to how dry leaves of C. Sinensis can be used in creating a disgusting, poisonous or utterly revolting concoction. That however does not mean that the TEA was bad.

As I remember one of the stories about Sir W. Churchill and Lady Astor. They had tea and the lady noticed that the Sir was quite drunk "Winston, you are disgusting, said she. If I was your wife, I would have poisoned your tea. Madam, replied Churchill immediately, If I was your husband I would drink it".

Well, the dirty bastard did have a quick and sharp mind.

Sasha.

Ah, Beckett. I actually woke up the other day with the vague sense that life might somehow be worth living. Have to go back and reread yet again. Thanks, Rick. Love the quotes.

Michael

Rick Chappelld4or87$ij8$ snipped-for-privacy@news.doit.wisc.edu4/27/05

Alex Chaihorsky_0Wbe.8733$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com4/27/05

Ah, Concrete Tea: Surely one of the all time favorites of our time. Sorry to report, it's not manufactured on Crete, though. Oh, well. Such is life.

Not that it's relevent, but I recall President Reagan proclaiming catsup a vegetable -- so what do those kids have to complain about? -- and our current AH would dismantle social security in a last ditch population control effort, which in the end will probably work.

Back to Becket. It's all sucking stones.

Michael

Alex ChaihorskyYMXbe.8786$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com4/27/05

Hehehe, as we are wont to say. Yuk, a good one, Sasha. He was a creepy bastard, but a sharp one. What kind of cigars did you say he smoked?

I'm drinking Jing and Seb's "XM Long Jing Medium Mountain Aged Tree," quite nice and amusing. First, it's a well balanced LJ with some roast meat/chestnut aroma off the wetted leaves and much gentleness to follow including that lemony thing. The flower thing is much muted (happily), and the bitterness that pulls it all together comes out in the third steep and only then when the tea cools a bit in cup. As Jing explained in an earlier post, these higher elevation teas are more than likely organic, and they are not as beautiful in the leaf as some of the carefully contrived sell-your-first-born teas. So, perhaps I should begin to doubt my insistence on perfectly formed leaves. Maybe there's more to it, eh?

Seb and Jing sent me five samples. None were bad. Some were less balanced. One -- I think I mentioned it previously -- was curiously almost cloying across the tongue for a flash of second. More later.

Michael

Actually, an interesting trick is to add a spoonful of Portland cement to tea. The cement adsorbs all of the color... you wind up with a cup of something that is completely clear, but tastes like tea. And some nasty gunk at the bottom of the cup.

--scott

Is this it? About $250 here. Hsiakuan is Xiaguan:

http://216.239.39.104/translate_c?hl=en&u=

Jim

Mike Petro wrote: ...eaten by pu beaties...

enclosed

I've had lemon in my tea, but lime?

And how long do you need to wait for your tea to set?

Rick (drinking a very fragrant black loose leaf pu erh, "Jipin", made from Yunnan gold).

Sorry, Rick, but we don't really know that the mysterious Jipin is made from Yunnan black/red/gold, i.e. from fully oxidized tea. I kind of feel responsible for propagating this surmise, so I don't want people to think it's a settled fact. Sure, it looks like a tippy Dian Hong, but it smells like porcini mushrooms and dried apricots, so who knows?

/Lew

Yep, that's the same one. Good price, I wonder if that is an opening bid or a buy it now price. I dont fully understand this site. If it is like Ebay then you also have to be careful of seconds and other tricks of the trade.

Mike

Mike Petro

The look and feel is Ebay. The community of buyers will filter out the bad sellers. It even has it's preferred payment method using Bank and CC from China. It is cheaper to list. The Puer listings on Ebay.cn are pitiful. I drool over the variety found here. I wished I could place a bid. I use it as a resource. I can buy a buck Xiaguan tuocha in Chinatown but I should have more choices. I wished there was a better photo so you could identify the liths.

Jim

Mike Petro wrote:

Why cant you bid? From my conversation with one of them they are eager to sell... He told me that 1 kg shipment to SF would be RNB 120, and 3 kg - RMB

Sasha.

If I was sure the seller understood English better than I do Chinese I probably would. So can you walk through the registration and the preferred CC pages for us Occidentals? Do the auctions take something like Western Union Auction Payment Services where they cut an International MO? I've done that for European Ebay purchases. I'd like to bid on 50 of those 8 yuan touchas and start them on Ebay at $5

• s/h. Forget the puerh and climb the tree to the tea treasures. Unbelievable.

Jim

Alex Chaihorsky wrote:

Ebay.cn

opening

Hi Sasha,

That would be accurate for Sea shipping.

To ship a 1 kg package from Kunming, other cities like Guangzhou are slightly different, to the Usa the charges are approximately as follows:

AIR (15 days) - $36.31 SAL (30 days)- $21.42 SEA ( 60 days)- $10.53

The vendors catering to the US who are based in China, like Teaspring or Jingteashop or GrandTea or CyberSilkRoads, that offer shipping for $3.85 for Air shipment are actually absorbing most of the cost of shipping into the retail price of their teas. The 4 bucks basically covers the packaging materials etc as they paclage better than most Chinese vendors do. They do it thisway because most Americans cant fathom the true cost of Air shipping from China. M&J's is the exception as they charge full actual price for shipping which usually makes them more expensive than the other guys. SAL is the best value if you are not in too much of a hurry. With the SEA method the boxes have often been rather damaged by the time I got them, and you cant file a claim when you use SEA as no insurance is offered. One common problem with Chinese vendors is that they don't package the teas very well for shipment, often there is no bubble wrap or any other cushioning material, I have received a lot of damaged goods because of this. Often they just throw the tea in a box and ship it, consequently the thin bingcha wrappers are often torn and battered from bouncing around inside of the box. It seems to be a common problem and not just a single vendor.

A problem with bidding on these sites, or ding business with China in general, is how you pay them. Most cannot accept USA credit cards, few have ever heard of Paypal. I have had to use Western Union and/or bank wire transfers, both of which are terribly expensive.

While the prices in China are very cheap, compared ton US pricing, the transaction overhead can be very high due to wire fees and shipping. It usually doesn't pay if you only order> CC from China. It is cheaper to list. The Puer listings on Ebay.cn

Mike Petro

He was quoting SAL.

Sasha.

I actually contacted him directly. Let me try to go through registration, etc. It may work. I cannot believe that they would exclude the ABCs.

Sasha.

Mike Petro