Japanese RTD: Asahi Kuro cha... (need some english)

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SN, Well my Japanese is pretty basic but the main 2 large characters do mean "black tea". It does also say that it contains pu-erh tea ($B%W!

Hi--

The gist of what you got seems fine-- there's a lot of hype-blather in that copy.

The price is perfectly cheap: It's a case of 24, so it's under 150 yen per 490 ml (about 16 oz) bottle. This is the kind of stuff that is sold in vending machines all the time. A bottle of Snapple tea costs about the same. This is mass-market stuff, and any pu-er that's involved is VERY dilute.

The name is interesting: Kuro-Cha. Literally "black tea," BUT: What we, in English, call "black tea" is, in Japanese called "red tea." But every high school student learns the English expression "black tea," and understands the mis-match... this company is playing with that weirdness, and claiming a new and different meaning for "black tea," though this time, it's written in Chinese characters.

The description says stuff about the tea being made of green tea, enriched by fermentation and a special heat process, and says that the Pu-er tea is made easier to drink by adding jasmine tea.

Any other particular questions? Doing an artistic/nuanced translation of ad-copy seems kind of pointless...

james-henry

thank you,

my question is: is it black tea/ black+ puerh /or just puerh

It doesn't contain what in the west we call black tea. As james-henry said, in Japan and China what we call black tea in the west, is known as red tea. In China pu-erh is referred to as black tea.

I actually enjoy that diluted Puerh taste, I'm not sure if it is simply weak Puerh or if it is cut/blended with another tea like a keemun or oolong. Particularly noteworthy was the tea I had at Mr. Tangs in NYC which was definitely Puerh but either diluted or blended as I said. I really enjoyed it and that's a rarity at the average Chinese restaurant.

- Dominic

Right, but in China black tea usually means all post-fermented teas, not just Pu'er. Confusingly, some Chinese use Heicha (black tea) to mean all post-fermented teas *except* Pu'er, e.g. Liu An, Liu Bao.

/Lew

I'm going to get some of the other black teas I see in my chinese tea book. The two glaring(I think) admissions from this book so far LiuAn(fermented) and Da Hong Pao both readily available in Chinatown.

Jim

Lewis Per>