tea translation needed (2023 Update)

Hi,

Wow, those are great pictures. The tea is most likely a Wulong -- an Oolong of one of the greenest types. Does it produce a yellow liquor and taste and smell pleasantly of some kind of flower? Is the taste soft, perhaps a little like a melon? Does it have a lingering complex aftertaste on your tongue and at the back of your throat after you've swallowed the tea, perhaps

*slightly* bitter, but at the same time slightly sweet and melony? Or maybe I'm flying off walls. Others will correct me.

Great idea, uploading those pictures.

For the Chinese, our first line of defense is of course BabelCarp...

...who tells us that Zhong Guo means "Middle Kingdom". You can play with BabelCarp further using the link above.

Michael

auntymoEZyvc.617880$Pk3.116337@pd7tw1no6/3/04 01: snipped-for-privacy@shaw.ca

Hi Auntymo,

"Famous Chinese Tea". Well that looks like a box from Mainland China.

"the way of tea" "top quality" etc.

The name of the tea is : Tie Guan Yin.

Guan Yin is the god(dess) Kannon. Ti is black iron (black silver ?), an old character used here.

Big "stalks". Funny, that's exactly the same appearance of the one I was drinking today.

And you have little branches with 2 or 3 leaves on them ? Mine is called Anxi Mao She I had never heard of it before, which means nothing. It's also a Wulong. I get a yellow brew.

There is a Anxi Tie Guan Yin, that should cost 20$ per 100g or more. It gives an orange brew and is not so green when you see it dry. What is on your photo looks more like a Taiwanese for the color (that gives a yellow brew ?).

Kuri

Working with the PinYin with assumed accents:

zhong quo is mainland china ming is the tea plant we call camilla sinensis cha means tea as in a drink

The tea itself looks like a Pouchong (slightly oxidized green). Maybe additional inscription shows the tea location of origin probably somewhere in Fujian. It looks like commercial packaging so care to share where we can get some? That is tantalizing leaf.

Jim

I bet it's a variant transliteration of Mao Xie, or Hairy Crab. Good stuff!

/Lew

thanks for the response so far! but then i figured you guys would love a mystery. heh

i made some more of it today, just seven dry leaves in my small gaiwan. and once the leaves uncurled they filled half the gaiwan!

here is a picture of the leaves after i enjoyed my tea:

(as you can see most of the branches have three leaves on them)

the dry leaves are tightly rolled and heavy, reminding me of a gunpowder tea. it also smells green like a gunpowder, with no flowery scent that is noticeable.

the liquor is yellow green. it smells like a chinese green. very light taste. as i said, pretty green. heh. i'm new at this by the way.

on the top of the container there is some embossed writing: 'zi bo xinlu' the character for tea, and then underneath... 'zhiguan'

a couple of people have said that the container says it is a ti kuan yin. if it is...wow...it's not like any ti kuan yin i've ever tried yet, seeming more 'green' than usual, and having none of the flowery, perfumy oolong smell. anyways i like it. :)

it cost about $30.00CAD for the container of tea, which i guesstimate holds about 200 or so grams (?). i'm pretty horrible at guesstimating, and don't have a scale handy. anyways, it will probably last me forever since i only need a few leaves per gaiwan.

i bought it at a hole in the wall chinese shop in our local china town. i think i've been to most of them already, i like to take a bit of a risk and purchase tea usually having no idea of what i am actually getting. it would probably help a lot if i knew chinese eh? i'm no conoisseur, but i've found a few kinds i really like, a da hong pao, some ti kuan yin, and a few greens, also *another* mystery tea which i'll probably start another thread for.

anyways, thanks for all the help so far!

--mo--

I agree it's a Ti Kuan Yin I've never seen. In fact I think of cheap TKY as the poor mans Puerh. You can go into the grocery stores and buy cheap TKY and go into the retail tourist stores and buy much more expensive Ti Kuan Yin. I've seen tins for +$100 so switch to Puerh from the apothocary. I've never bought at high prices but yours is worth checking out. My local tea shoppe is getting a new stock of Ti Kuan Yin to replace the old. He never liked the taste of the old and likes the new. It hasn't arrived but tasted a sample he had from the Lost Wages tea show and I agree. It is big black curled chunky leaf. He started his second anniversary sale yesterday and I stocked up on some great bargains. He had TongYu Mountain green tea from Fujian which seems to be rare. I'll go back on Sunday and cleanup on whatever remains.

Jim

Jasmin tee