I had a brief email discussion with Phil Parda of Zhong Guo Cha, the tea vendor mentioned here a few weeks back, and received a very impressive package the other day in the mail. I have yet to go through all of the samples, but I can most certainly say that they are impressive and from what I have tasted so far definately legit. Each tea has easily been above what I was expecting. I find the pricing to be pretty fair even though it is for 50g, and some are outright bargains.
A little background: I had looked into this vendor when someone posted about the company, I then researched the company background as well as the owner. I then had requested a sample from the website, in the meantime though I spoke with the owner and offered to fairly evaluate his product. Since so many vendors rarely do this but promise the world, and since there are a lot of unscrupulous vendors and spammers, I wanted to at least offer an olive branch to a reputable vendor and give them a fair shake. They did not post here or spam, I contacted them. I am not advertising for them, just providing an honest appraisal to a stand up vendor, and I am including their numbering scheme since they have multiple grades of each in some teas. The numbering is a bit cumbersome though and tough to work with since there is no real breakdown of what they mean anywhere that I saw.
A quick rundown of the tea so far:
W-13-1-1 Silver Needles (Bai Hao Yin Zhen) - Excellent. Quality, taste, and price. This is about half the price of similar tea from other vendors and at or above their quality. A+ This was light and flavorful with nice sweetness, no bitterness and subtle vegetal notes. I'd place it between the flavor of a high quality white and a high quality pi lo chun.
G-1-3-3 Dragon Well - Very good. Better than the Spring 2006 Dragonwell from Ten Ren and at a third of the price. Dragonwell is not a particular favorite of mine, but this was everything you would want in a quality (smooth, chestnutty, delicate) Dragonwell at a very good price.
G-4-1-1 Que She (Bird's Tongue) - Wow. This was a standout for me. It is not a budget tea at ~$22 for 50g, and it was highly rated on their site so I was expecting to be a little let down from the lofty expectations... I was wrong. This quickly (to my dismay) is on my top green list. The intial nose of it was a bit strong and vegetal (which is a good thing to me) but then the first sip betrayed that and offered a very delicate and smooth green with a understated vegetal taste. I was a bit bummed at first since I was hoping for a strong vegetal green, but that went away pretty quick when the flavor was great in it's own right. This will be a nice treat every now and then for me.
G-4-8-3 Bi Luo Chun - OK for the money. ($8.50 for 50g ) Having just finished some Pi Lo Chun from Adagio that I received as a gift this was on par and just a touch over their price. Not the best value, but a very good Pi Lo Chun that at least met my expectations. To be fair they do offer a higher grade, and I may try some of that next time.
O-9-6-2 Iron Buddha (Tie Guan Yin) Oolong - Damn fine. The other tea from Adagio I had just finished up was some TGY and this beat it hands down. Not only that but at $2 less. It absolutely blew away the TGY I bought at Ten Ren too. Even though I'm not an oolong person, and I am mainly comparing to those other two, this was a nice surprise.
I still have a number of teas to sample (oolongs, pu-erh, and a few others), and I hate to give all glowing reviews without some negatives to balance it out... but it is actually pretty tough to do. The Pi Lo Chun and Dragonwell were still top-notch and they were the only two I could even try to knock a bit... but even then the prices are pretty damn good for the quality so even that is tough. ZGC certainly is catering to a bit higher quality tea at a bit higher prices, but even as frugal as I am I could easily see each one so far being worth every penny... and again in fairness compared to many vendors the prices are dead even or a bit below. The only real negative things I can say is that the shipping is a bit expensive if you are ordering small amounts (and again the counterpoint is that the shipping was lightening fast and extremely well packaged), the numbering system is a bit of a kludge to work with and cumbersome, the breakdown of price per cup (based on
6-8oz. in my math) of tea doesn't compute with my figures on the website, and the site itself could use some work and cohesiveness with a few outdated prices and inconsistencies I found while browsing.Overall, this site will see more business from me in the future, I'm a tough nut to crack and they managed to slip in and crush my hard shell. For all the bashing I do (generally well warranted) this is the first time I've felt compelled to give some props. The owner knows his stuff, gives talks and demonstrations, has an actual brick and mortar store in CT, and while health benefits are talked about they are not overblown or overhyped. I'm most definately impressed so far and I will update this thread when I finish the rest of the teas. They're well worth a try in my book, and the time it took for me to write all this.
- Dominic Drinking: Ten Ren Jasmine Green (2nd. grade)