Oolong grades

The Chinese characters for "tou deng" are î^µÈ meaning first class. I don't think using them with Google will be much of a delineator. On the English side you see terms like Phoenix#1, Imperial Gold, Supreme, Premium, Grade A which means more lightly roasted or green TKY. Some new seller yesterday on Ebay had 250g of the greenier chunky looking TKY I like to see starting at a reserved price. I bid what I thought was reasonable, didn't make the reserve. This guy is going to sell alot.

Jim

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:

Jim, thanks for the input. Despite the huge language barriers I faced during my last visits to China I had a great time there and bagged some exquisite Oolongs and Pu-Erhs, but I guess a little more chinese would make for a huge difference. Hopefully I'll be back there in December.

Karsten / Darjeeling

I always thought TGY was heavy roasted. At least that was the only kind I could find in Chinatown. I gave up on it till someone in this group mentioned it could be more green. About the same time my local tea shoppe opened and carried two green versions Imperial Gold and Supreme. I've only found one similar commercial brand on the shelves. Once you know it exist then it is worth seeking out. I understand going to China from India for teas. I assume Chinese teas aren't available locally in India. Is there more at play than just economics of Indian teas versus Chinese?

Jim

kmurali snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.> Jim,

At least not that I knew of. I was simply overwhelmed by the unumbered varieties I was able to find during my last visit to China. I personally prefer the less baked versions by far. Got some wonderful stuff left from my last trip there, no signs of it. Even my DJ tea guru who is highly allergic to any sign of roasted flavor/aroma in any tea ("wrong firing", hehe) likes that stuff. I've seen him getting mad on signs of bad firing in some DJs we tasted together when I couldn't detect anything of that sort.

Me too. After 4 months on almost nothing but Darjeelings, some Assams and some grams of Oolongs I really need a change of pace. Until I came here the first time 5 or 6 years ago all I asked for where all kinds of Oolongs, Yunnans and Keemuns, better Senchas and Gyokuros, but then ... Variety rules.

Despite the fact that the indian market (like the rest of world) gets more and more flooded with all kinds of chinese stuff AFAICT just a few teas made it here (lochanteas.com in Siliguri), and you really have to search hard to find any.

As far as I can tell the main reason lies in the fact that in the north of India most tea ends up as chai, with truckloads of milk/sugar and some spices thrown in. East and south of here you can find the same "dessert" kind of preparation without milk, but whereever I travelled in India overdoses of sugar are a common sight (yuk). Then tea is the national drink number one, darn cheap, even poor folks can afford it. The domestic demands are pretty much covered by Indias own production so there's not much money to be made here. Tea is something that adds liquid a bit of taste and some color to their sugar. One thing I discussed with many locals and mentioned before, the average local here has no idea of how a med-grade (not to mention high-grade) Darjeeling tea tastes like. They use CTC Assam to dilute the sugar-milk mix up here. I don't know a single fellow in the entire district, Nepal or Sikkim who would drink tea w/o sugar. Never met one.

Karsten / Darjeeling

My Indian friends tell me the cheaper the tea the better the chai. Is there any local demand for the more expensive DJs? Or is it just exported? I understand Germany gets the first dibs on the DJ flushes. Do you recommend any German sites that export to the US that might be ahead of the curve for the most recent DJs?

Jim

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:

...I delete some of me and you

Heheh, the tea is probably not supposed to cover the lovely taste of that sugary milk mess. Prepacked Assam is dirtcheap here, hafta look up the price if you're interested.

Not too much of it. I actually never obeserved any local paying more than ~300 Rps (~ US $ 6.60) for a kg. This stuff CAN have a nice appearance and CAN smell good but there's nothing in the cup but color. The fun starts at about double that price.

Maybe 95 % of the stuff worth mentioning. The other 5% are bought by tourrrrists.

Yes, as far as I can tell the major part of it. France and Japan come second.

I have no idea. These days I buy my DJs over here, stock up on chinese leaves in China and really dunno anybody doing Exports from Germania, but I remeber a few guys who really know DJs.

Jim, you could have PMed me, and I would have sent you some stuff from here at self cost, but unf. tomorrow my friends shop will be closed and I'm leaving on Friday. This guy had most of the stuff I reported on for VERY reasonable prices.

Most probably I'm back in May. The firsts are still reasonably fresh, there will be a greater selection and the seconds are just a few weeks away.

Best, Karsten / Darjeeling

Sending tea is a PITA. I spent a couple of hours this morning finding boxes and packing teas to send to my brother. I came up short on tape and labels so decided to send from local MailBoxes independent store. It is OOB. Now I have to buy tape,labels and go stand in line at PO. I don't send teas just because of this and I wouldn't ask anybody to do it for me. I think some German sites have been previously mentioned for DJs. There will always be teas others have I can't taste and vice versa. You never said anything about green and white DJs which was the rage over here before the pu. If I'm in a tea producing country I'm looking for sources just like you. I wished some Ebay vendor would show up from India like the several from China. Does anyone know of an online store overthere with a good selection? Enjoy your bounty of tea. Thanks for flushing out the flushes so I know what to look for and embedded others for giving us the local inside scoop.

Jim

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:

...pruning shears...