Ten Ren? Is it good tea?

I think Ten Ren is ok but kind of the McDonalds of tea. It's neither especially expensive nor extremely high quality, so you're pretty safe, but on the other hand it won't blow your socks off.

They have chain stores all over the place - there is one in Chinatown in NYC.

I like TenRen loose teas. AFAIK their commercial loose teas aren't for export. Their export teabags don't compare. I recently paid $7/150g for bags of Green and TungTing. Another very good commercial brand from Taiwan is Good Young. Again buy their loose teas and not teabags. I've never had a bad Pouchong from Taiwan from anybody. So to wrap it up, I like commercial loose teas from Taiwan.

Jim

bloehard wrote:

Most of the teabags of theirs I have tried were very stale, even ones purchased at the Ten Ren stores.

The Ten Ren stores have a wide variety of loose teas, although for the most part the more expensive ones and the oddities aren't stocked very conistently. For example, the NYC store has lapsang souchong, which the Rockville store does not... but Rockville has two grades of the Oriental Beauty tea while the NYC store has only one.

Ten Ren usually has five or six grades of each variety, but the stores don't stock all of them. For the most part, they get more fragrant as you go up in price. The cheap teas are very inexpensive, and the high end teas are very expensive although many of the stores only stock the stuff in the middle.

The second-to-lowest grade tung ting is pretty good, and reasonably priced. I love the oriental beauty teas. The king's tea and the lapsang are both kind of nasty.

Oh yes, and their osmanthus teas are interesting. As you go up in price, the teas have less osmanthus and more tea flavour.

--scott

If you are looking for high grade of taiwan tea. you should take a look at :

It seemed pretty good, but I have not had alot of oolongs that compare with it. It was loose and seems to be what the Asians buy around here. There are just so many behind the counter, and the price goes up from there. Wondered if I was barking up the right bush.

OK I will shop at your store. Thank you for advertising on usenet.

That's probably their King's tea with the large numerals. Look at the TenRen site and you'll see the corresponding description with the number. The reason I haven't bought any is because it is behind the counter with the TCM medicines and expensive and by definition made up your mind to buy before asking to see the item. Taiwan is it's own tea producing region and comparing oolong taste to any other region is apples and oranges. If somebody mentions floral I immediately think of Taiwan.

Jim

bloehard wrote:

I tend to agree. Taiwanese oolong was a real revelation for me. I think the mouth-feel of gaoshan oolong is also very distinctive.

Space can you recommend an online retailer with a good selection of Taiwanese oolongs? Hou De has a lot but they are on vacation (in Taiwan, the lucky sods) and I want instant gratification.

I'm lucky to get my Taiwan fix from commercial brands and my local tea shoppe. I have ordered from the Taiwan seller TEAHOMEUS on Ebay for the stuff I can't find locally. Since you know something use Google and search the .TW domain that sell through mail order. I would but I'm language dyslexic. Again apples and oranges I've never found a YunWu from the mainland that compares to a GaoShan from Taiwan.

Jim

PS Since I'm pimping there is a new seller on Ebay named lDLLU who goes by the name of Gordon with a shop in Shanghai called Dragon Tea House. His English is very good. I've received one order of Puer which the other sellers don't carry.

Alex wrote:

Had the white tea once. I wasn't aware it was actually a chain of tea shops. Thanks for alerting me to this; there happens to be one about a half mile from my house, as it turns out. I bought Ten Ren brand white tea from an asian market about a year ago and wasn't impressed, but then I haven't been extremely impressed by any of the white tea i've tried so far.

Last night I stopped at Ten Ren on the way home and bought some powdered green tea (a lot like Japanese matcha, it seems) and two ounces of Pu erh. So far, I like them both a lot. I hope I haven't acquired a new expensive habit.

I noticed that the shop also sold Uncle Lee teas. Is Uncle Lee a subsidiary? I drink their Legends of China teas as an everyday brew.

The TenFu (what it is called on Mainland China) shops here are absolutely terrible. They sell rubbish for highly marked up prices.

Is TenFu the same thing as Ten Ren? I always assumed it was just shameless Mainland Chinese intellectual property thievery. And btw I agree, it does suck.

TenFu/Ren is of Taiwanese origin. On the mainland and in Taiwan (I think in Taiwan too), the shop is called TenFu, while in foreign countries, it's called Ten Ren. Why the name change? I have no idea. Bottom line is that the tea is expensive and poor quality comparatively speaking to other shops and getting the teas direct from markets.

I'm also with you guys on this one. The overall quality of the Taiwan teas that I've tried have been so superior to the mainland wulongs, that it's hard to compare. I got some of this great A Li Shan now that a rich friend gave me, goes for about 100 bucks in Taiwan for a little more than 300g, that would simply make you weep with joy when you drink it. I compare this to a sample of "top grade" Tie Guan Yin that someone gave me from Tenfu, and it simply makes me laugh. The tenfu stuff goes for like 2000 or more yuan (or like 250 bucks) and it tastes like it should be more like 10 or 15 bucks.

snipped-for-privacy@j73g2000cwa.googlegroups.com5/10/06

I dislike Ten Ren shops in NYC because the staff speaks little English, tries to sell higher priced tea than what you are interested in regardless of what tea you are interested in (a sort of bait and switch). The used car salesman mentality abounds. Nonetheless, you will find some green teas of reasonably good quality near or at the counters, and some reasonably good quality Oolongs in tinned vacuum sealed bags. Having said that, I still recommend buying teas elsewhere where everybody knows your name.

I did think Ten Ren and Ten Fu were two companies. I *thouoght* I saw TenFu products here as well as Ten Ren's, but I could be wrong and probably am.

Michael

snipped-for-privacy@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com5/11/06

I am *not* a Ten Ren apologist. I don't like their shops. In fairness, they own plantations. Getting tea from your own plantation trumps getting tea from the market, at least in theory. Michael

Look, a lot of people start their pu-erh adventure with cheap mini tuos. Ten Ren has them and some passable 100gm tuos in their lineup. It becomes a great inexpensive starting point to get a beginner past teabags. I am drinking one of their 100 gm gift cakes , I cant vouch for their teabags because the samples they sent I gave to a friend. There is a whole lot of far better tea out there but you still have to have a starting point.

That's true. I also like their top-grade dung-ding oolongs. But I do not like their business practices: an overly clever manager in their Chinatown SF store tried to sell me year-old white tea; I had to point out to the manager of their Chicago store that they were selling the above-mentioned minituos at 50% over their website's price (he claimed it was the cost of shipping from SF), and these oolongs are very dear.

Rick.