More seed style grade (revisited)

That's really unusual Jim. Stating the obvious I guess. I am eager to hear if anyone recognizes the type.

Melinda

That's weird. These tea leaves look as if they have been digested by a bird.

Kuri

Space snipped-for-privacy@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com6/30/05

Jim,

Could you fill me in here. The picture -- it's a great picture, btw -- looks like stones of granite. Are these petrified pods? Also, I'm not familiar with "pod grade tea." Is this one of those semi-official terms for tea repleat with tea pods and seeds? I haven't encountered such, except in a lone Pu'erh now well known in NYC.

Michael

It really looks like Ren Cen Wulong to me, actually. Can you describe the taste and the color of the liquor? If it's sweet and the liquor is a bit orange, you have yourself some type of grade of Ren Cen Wulong (Ginseng Wulong). The leaves are coated with powdered Ginseng after it's cooked; quite tasty and it's popular in Taiwan.

I have some tea that looks like this sitting right behind me on my tea shelf.

Hi Mydnight, I have tried this exact same tea from this vendor and it is indeed coated with ginseng.

The vendor also offers a "Ren Shen Fujian Wulong" but it is a different tea from this tea. They both "look" the same though. The Ren Shen Fujian Wulong can be found at

Mike

PS the "Ren Shen Fujian Wulong" is the more expensive of the two.

Your description is good as mine. In this photo I call the style 'nuggets' because of more irregularity in the shape. The vendor calls this tea Wang Zhong Wang which is noted by the url. The term 'seed' and 'pod' are my own description of the other two teas so I'm not referring to any other standard of which I know. You can call the leaf petrified because it is that hard. It's almost like it is compressed. Occasionally one will slowly open in the pot revealing a whole leaf. It could be it is some germinating leaf structure. If that were so I wouldn't expect the TKY to taste similar to the ones that go through the Orthodox method of preparation. But then maybe the ungerminated form is processed like the Orthodox. The 'finish' is consistent across the three teas. My samples come in little commercial bags and not loose as you see here.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote:

...I delete me...

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Mike, can you tell us your opinion on this tea?

Thanks.

Sasha.

I'm almost allergic to ginseng. Even the smell causes me to cramp. If my three samples were coated I think I would have a reaction. Even allowing for a coating would it cause the leaf to become almost petrified or impenetrable. The dealer does have a ginseng style that looks like this but he identifies it as such. I'm leaning toward the suggestion it is an ungerminated leaf structure.

Jim

Mydnight wrote:

Sure, let me preface this by saying that I am not an oolong aficionado by any stretch of the imagination. YMMV

It was sweet, nutty, somewhat fruity, and somewhat toasty. It brewed up an orangish tan. I got a solid 8 steeps out of it.

It is nice for a change of pace but is not your typical oolong.

Mike

I have always been told that the "ginseng" in many Chinese products was regular carrot. You wouldn't be allergic to false ginseng. I've done a browsing in Japanese about bird's sh... looking tea. I expected finding bird's nest tea, but I've seen only pages about the ginseng tea Mydnight talks about. They advertise it for people allergic to pollen (a huge market here).

You can see a photo of ginseng TGY here :

Also, if they can coat tea with ginseng powder, they can probably do it with other flavors.

Kuri

What exactly do you mean by that? Leaf does not actually come from a germinated state, unless we are talking about tiny, barely visible ones that just comes out of the bud. And these are no Camelia teabuds for sure. Without exposure to the light a leaf cannot develop neither its size, no its color, so if after numerous brews these "nuggets" open up into something looking like a developed leaf that mean that this leaf was rolled into that "nugget" state after it has a chance to fully develop. May be they do not cover this particular tea with ginseng material, but they may use something else.

Sasha.

Thanks, Mike.

Did you gongfu it? Does it have any wonderful fragrance? I enjoy a good fresh oolong once in a while but only gongfu style and only for its fragrance, not its taste. Shui Xian is an exception.

Sasha.

I thought the tea plant would go to seed if left on it's own. That is flower and with cross pollination producing seeds which birds would eat and and crap elsewhere with a chance to grow. Every leaf on every tree I've seen is produced from some growth nodule first (origin of nipped in the bud) including my Russian Olives which is considered a weed in my state and smell better than my fruit trees. There is something in the pu of which others speak but that comes from the wild tree. I have some but no real tasting yet. I think my germinated leaf supposition has been debunked. I'm still trying to account for the hardness of the rolled leaf. The samples of which I speak are in commercial packaging but I don't see the characters for ginseng anywhere not even the Wang Zhong Wang. The TKY is not flavored with anything because I drink the Orthodox versions enough. It is on the mild green side. I'm on my fourth 8 oz cup seeded with 10 pods which I estimate at 2g total and only one looks like a leaf and not a pod. There would be little taste in the next cup. All I can say is this style of leaf from three samples so far is nothing I've ever seen. I don't see any flavoring producing this type of tea.

Jim

Alex Chaihorsky wrote:

Tea seeds in Uji have 1 cm of diameter, and they appear when the leaves are old and thick at the end of Summer. It's much bigger than your pods. I don't know for other sorts of tea bush, but that seems unlikely. They may have used the young tips not fully developped.

Tea flavored tea ? They coat it with the powder of the same tea ? I don't know what that would bring exactly, but my supermarket now sells wulong and TGY in shape of mini tuo-chas, because it looks cool and it's convenient ( dosed for one standard pot, easy to carry). Maybe the coating protects the leave from staling.

Kuri

I used 3.1g of tea in a 5oz gaiwan. I used techniques and timings similar to a gongfu session. It was mildly aromatic but I did not use the smelling cup like you typicaly do. I didnt want to put it in one of my yixing pots either since it looked so different than any other oolong.

I am convinced it is a coating. The leaves look like they were probably rolled first and then coated in some manner. After several steeps you can see the coating break and the leaves expand a bit but the leaves dont ever really unfurl.

Mike

It looks exactly like an oolong I tried a while back called Blue Spring - you can find info on google using the string - "Blue Spring" +oolong

As I recall, it's coated with herbs, including some kind of anise - I remember a distinct licorice taste. It was pleasant enough, but not so's I'd make it a regular................p*

I've got a good url on the botany of the tea plant somewhere. Apparently I should find it again. Everyone once in awhile I'm allowed to walk the plank backwards till I fall in. Don't make me rise up from Davy Jones' Locker if I ever discover that the tea bush is allowed to flower in Japan for whatever reason. Interesting your comment about the Xiao (mini) tuochas. I mention recently buying some in Chinatown and not caring for the taste compared to other cheap green puerh. I just looked again and the only English is Green Tea and I can't find any characters for Sheng or Puerh. The leaf you can peel with hand. I think it is an ordinary green tea in tuocha form without much taste. Can you describe the surface of the wulong and TGY tuocha and how hard it is. If it looks like the ones we've seen then problem solved. It is compressed for whatever reason. It could very well be that the one tea I described as a seed is really a seed. The larger pod and nugget is definitely rolled leaf and hard beyond belief with a completely smooth sealed like surface. The ginseng would have to be acting as a hard glaze hiding the irregular surface of the rolled leaf and preventing it from coming apart after several infusions. I mentioned before the TenRen King tea with American Ginseng you find behind herbal counters. It is so expensive I've never cared to buy some to even discover if the grade is similar to what I'm talking about. Someone in Fujian is producing at least 3 different non flavored commercial oolongs with a grade of tea I haven't seen before. Five if you count the obvious RenShen already mentioned from China and Taiwan. Sometimes I think my posts give people a bad hair day.

Jim

kuri wrote: