Vietnamese Tea

What is the "OP" marketing of which you speak frankly?

I am not familiar with this linguistic term. Please define this anagram of commodity.

Thank You for YOUR response of thoughtfulness.

:)

Orange Pekoe. A lot of folks will turn their nose up at anything that is marked as orange pekoe.

--scott

There's a Vietnamese green that's decidedly above commodity level called Thai Nguyen. I believe you spend some of your time in DC; you might check Teaism, which has carried it in the past.

I was once given a sample of a Vietnamese black called Marble Mountain. It was rich and complex, with some fruit and a hint of tobacco. I was about to say I don't know where you can get it, but look:

/Lew

My son-in-law's father (who is Vietnamese himself) gave me a tin of Thai Nguyen just last week. It is a very nice green, and although I've had Wuyi and Liu An's that I thought were better, this is good stuff.

Regards, Dean

My metro area has a large Vietnamese population catered by Chinese and Vietnamese stores. When I see the Vietnamese tea selection it is like the first time I saw Chinese teas. They have their own nomenclature with corresponding Chinese tea characters. I have a tin of Thai Nguyen $4/150g with dark green twisted whole leaf. The selections I see are packed in Hong Kong. Hedley's Tea is Vietnamese packed in Ceylon.

Jim

DPM wrote:

Jim,

Sounds like mine, except my tin is 100g, and since it was a gift I have no idea how much it cost. My son-in-law's father (odd - we don't have a single word for that relationship in English) has a fairly large extended family in the San Jose area, and from some comments he made I think the tea came from them. But it too appears to be dark green twisted whole leaf. The taste is on the grassy/vegetal side of the spectrum; my daughter thinks it tastes a lot like Japanese green which, since I understand that Vietnam now supplies a lot of tea to Japan, is not surprising.

Regards, Dean

The one I had from Teaism reminded me of a pretty good sencha, too.

/Lew

Amazing. The official language is Guoc Ngu based on Latin character set used by Catholic missionaries in the 17th century. It could accomodate the tonal sounds. It evolved from Chinese to Western characters. Maybe our resident language expert can add more. Thai Nguyen is a province north of Hanoi noted for premium green teas. I'd like to find some Vietnamese form of pu from the area that borders Yunnan. It is part of the swath of mountainous jungle called Upper India which contains the tea trees which became the cultivated bush in China.

Jim

Space Cowboy wrote:

Originally there was a written language called "Nom" (with a circumflex over the O), which used chinese characters but was phonetic. It was _very_ rapidly replaced with the current latin alphabetic method... by the late 19th century there were only a handful of historians who could read Nom.

If you walk around cities in Vietnam, you'll see inscriptions in buildings in Nom all over the place, and not a single one of the people passing by know what they mean. This is kind of sad.

My suspicion is that the notation you're seeing on the tea boxes isn't Nom at all, but is actual Chinese. It's easy enough to find out by using a Chinese dictionary.

--scott

I'm not sure what you mean. Why would it be Nom in any case? It's the current form. HaNoi has the grave for the A and circumflex for the O with the bottom dot. It took me awhile to satisify myself that the bottom dot was part of the Latin character set. I didn't remember it but it's been awhile since I studied the subject in high school. There was a time Latin was required by some Universities for admission. Today if you want a good high school education go to college.

Jim

Scott Dorsey wrote: