Where do you generally buy your tea?

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Usually in Chinatown, Vancouver. I also buy 3-for-$20 Hong Kong DVD's, for that matter. Chinatown here is not where the best Chinese teas in town are to be had, though. It's more for everyday tea. There are shops in Richmond, and other areas of Chinese concentration which carry much higher grade stuff. I once bought some sow-mei that was $17CAD for 100 grams at a place just outside an Asian supermarket, and it was heavenly. It's not really a steep price, but more than you can pay in Chinatown, at least any place I've seen.

Peter

Reply to
Peter

Hmm, smells like a really old thread but I'll bite,

Given a choice I would greatly prefer to walk into a teashop, try a few cups of something that intrigues me, and then buy the ones that make the grade. I was able to do this when I lived in Los Angles without any problem at all.

Unfortunately I am now about 427 miles from the nearest Chinatown and while there are a few good tea stores within a 1-2 hour drive they all have a very limited selection of puerh. Not wanting to let a little thing like lack of local availability stop me I ventured out onto the Internet and standard Snail Mail Order sources.

There is a much higher risk with Internet/Mail order vendors in that you cannot see, touch, smell, or taste samples of the teas before you buy them. The risk is particularly high with the finer grades as the cost tends to be higher. This has been very frustrating to me because my favorite tea is puerh and there is a lot of trial and error in finding mail order/Internet vendors for this variety.

Now, there are those amongst us who shiver and curse at the mere mention of a URL but I found that, much like neighborhood tea shops in the bigger cities, you can find a few choice vendors who will cater to your particular tastes and even procure specialties for you. The process is certainly slower and you lack that feeling of instant gratification that you get when you walk out of a brick and mortar store with a prize selection of your favorites. But alas I find it better to compromise than to do without. To be sure I have wasted a lot of money as I traveled down this road but I have found some very knowledgeable and reputable people along the way and I have gotten pretty good at recognizing a scam before spending any money

For those who are interested in Internet sources for Puerh just go to my website.

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You will find links to every US site that I know of, and a few international ones too, that carries 6 or more varieties of puerh. A lot of good Vendors that only had 1 or 2 puerh offerings didn't make the list. If any of you know of a site that I missed please email me. And of course my standard disclaimer, while I do have my favorites, I am not affiliated with any of them!

Mike Petro

On Sat, 6 Mar 2004 10:59:04 -0800, "Peter" cast caution to the wind and posted:

Reply to
Mike Petro

You're the second person since I've been here to say the largest ethnic population outside of China is a lousy place to buy Chinese teas. In my metro areas we have several megagroceries of Chinese merchants serving Vietnamese with streets and blocks of other stores and services in rundown shopettes. Sometimes the good places are hard to find because of the intimidation factor. I wouldn't expect to pay more $1/100g US for any sow-mei. One of my biggest disappointments ever was finding sow-mei(leaf) which I understood was White Tea but what I really wanted was Silver Needles(bud). Any Chinatown I've been in is a high rent district and the trick is to shop with the locals and not tourists.

Jim

Reply to
Space Cowboy

Danger! Will Robertson, Danger! Any redirection from this newsgroup too off premise websites which are nothing more than infomercials of someone's opinion of teas conveniently available at commercial websites is a classic con using the confidence ruse where someone has to buy something to verify any alledged claims. For those who claim to live in the boonies devoid of Chinatowns just go down to your nearest interstate and find the first non Motel 6 and buy your teas from the Indians running the place.

Jim

Reply to
Space Cowboy

Bro, I work with Chinese cats, and I chill with Chinese cats, and these dudes are into some tea. Vancouver has several areas of Chinese concentration, and the one known as Chinatown is merely the oldest. Like the chinatowns of San Francisco and NY, they are run-down districts near the waterfront. The merchants do not target the wealthy. The more upmarket shops seek to distance themselves from old Chinatown, adjacent as it is to the area of highest drug use in Canada, if not North America. There are some very fine tea shops in Marpole, Richmond, and the Metrotown area, and that is simply where the best stuff is to be had, and they are also where the more wealthy Asians live. No one with any money lives in or near Chinatown here. They may go there for festivals, events, and society meetings, but it is not the place to live when you can afford an upscale home.

However, just like in NY, Chinatown here seems to be growing. In NY, Chinatown has swallowed Little Italy, which is now a tiny enclave sequestered in a labrynth of Chinese establishments. In Vancouver, Chinese merchants have taken over the bottom level of what was supposed to be a Gap-Banana Republic-Foot Locker style mall on the edge of Chinatown. But still, you don't find the best tea there. It's elsewhere.

Peter

Reply to
Peter

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