Guangxi pu'er?
Mydnight
Wuzhou, Guangxi his hometown. The factory's name Guangxi Wuzhou Tea
Factory, and it has a symbol in the center of the cake of three Cranes
with the Hanzi that means the same under it. It is wrapped in plastic
and has an attached note on the back claiming it's from the 1980s but
we know how far that goes...
Another interesting aspect of the tea is that the note says it's "liu
bao" tea (meaning it's from liu bao county in Guangxi)...I'm not sure
if it's some sort of special tea or just the local name for this pu.
On the top part of the cake it reads "Guangxi Liu Bao Bing Tea"
The note in Chinese reads (as roughly translated):
"It's produced in Guangxi, Cangwu Liu Bao county...this type of tea has
a 200 year history...it has a scent of binglang (a kind of
fruit...translates to 'betel nut'?)...the older the better...it's
features: the color of the tea is red, strong, pure, old...liu bao tea
is used to curing some kinds of diseases (liji which means Dysentery),
helps improve eyesight, and helps your body get rid of impurities in
your blood...in the market, there isn't much of this tea...the tea was
made in the 1980s...it is from Wuzhou Tea Factory."
Valuable? Common? Rubbish? What do you think?
Michael Plant
04:35my...@hotmail.com
Only your mouth and nose will know for sure.
Michael
>
Mike Petro
Mydnight wrote:
snip
> "It's produced in Guangxi, Cangwu Liu Bao county...this type of tea
has
> a 200 year history...it has a scent of binglang (a kind of
> fruit...translates to 'betel nut'?)...the older the better...it's
> features: the color of the tea is red, strong, pure, old...liu bao
tea
> is used to curing some kinds of diseases (liji which means
Dysentery),
> helps improve eyesight, and helps your body get rid of impurities in
> your blood...in the market, there isn't much of this tea...the tea
was
> made in the 1980s...it is from Wuzhou Tea Factory."
>
> Valuable? Common? Rubbish? What do you think?
Strange, I thought I replied to this from home.
Anyway I too have some of this, see
http://www.pu-erh.net/graphics/Stash/DSCN0578.JPG
It is quite tasty but not exactly a puer. My cakes are shaped like a
hockey puck rather than the traditional tuocha birds nest shape. They
are very good. The only thing I dont like about them is that they are
made from chopped leaf rather than whole leaves, the only reason I dont
like it is because it is too easy to hide things in chopped leaf. They
are well worth having but I would not pay a premium for them.
As for 1980s well you know how that goes.....
Mike
Mydnight
Space Cowboy
loose leaf. The other slightly compressed but flakes easily. The
loose basket is expensive $25 the compressed cheap $6. The taste I
describe as mild shu with strong notes of sheng. My notes say LiuAn is
a single fermentation and puerh a double. Fermentation will produce
gas as a byproduct and oxidation can't.
Jim
Mike Petro
If it is true 80s then it is of value, but not of the same crazieness
that Puer brings because Liu Bao is not as well known.
Mike
Lewis Perin
Liu An isn't Liu Bao.
/Lew
---
Lew Perin / pe...@acm.org
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html
Space Cowboy
not talking about Lu-An Gua Pian. So far it seems LiuAn is the loose
leaf version and LiuBao the compressed. Maybe not.
Jim
SEb
Liu An is not the loose version of Liu Bao. They are not even from the
same province. Liu An is from Ahnui while Liu Bao is from Guangxi.
SEb
Lewis Perin
That agrees with what I've read too. (Minor quibble: that's "Anhui",
not "Ahnui".
Space Cowboy
the location of Liuan as such:
I have a similar looking basket from Chinatown with the Liu4An1
characters. It even came with the Zhong logo. We both agree there is
a femented tea from Guangxi. I get hits on Liu4Bao3 and Cang1wu2. The
translation software shows Cantonese Lok Poa or Six Forts tea. The
ripe tea is called litchi sinensis. I don't see Anhui producing Puer
because of its geographical isolation from Yunnan and Guangxi. There
is an 'old bamboo' area but the description of that tea doesn't seem to
be fermented. I think Liuan is a marketing name for puer from Guangxi
and not geography until someone who should know can categorically state
the puer bamboo baskets come from Anhui. The ITC site isn't the only
one which states the baskets comes from Guangxi.
Jim
Mike Petro
again....
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tea-disc/message/6036
Mike
SEb
Huo Mountain, which was belong to the Liu An County before, that is
where its name came from. Liu An basket is used the same green tea
leaves as the Liu An Gua Pian (which is from the same producing area)
but was plus steamed then stocked tightly inside the bamboo bastket.
Liu An tea is in fact a green tea (hui qing = Anhui chao green tea), it
is like the green pu-erh tea from Yunnan, is a post-fermented green
tea. The older it is the better (purer, more mellow) it will be. And
usually (what they did in the old time), this tea will be kept inside
the garage 2 to 3 years before selling on the market.
Liu Bao tea is originaly from Guangxi province, it got the name also
from the producing area, which is the Liu Bao village, Wu Cang County.
Liu Bao tea has loose form, compressed basket form (which the basket is
bigger than the Liu An tea from Anhui), beeng cha from, tuo cha form,
and different sizes brick form.
Liu Bao tea is in fact a fully fermented black tea, it can be drunk
fresh or aged, and the aged one is usually used as the medicine by the
local people.
So they are not the same tea at all, one is green and the other is
black. What similar is they are both sold inside bamboo baskets which
are not the same size nor same shape.
And neither of them should be called pu-erh tea since the new
definition of "puerh tea" is only used to refer to the tea that is
produced with using the "shai qing" leaves that are harvested from the
yunnan "dayeh" tea tree race.
Jing
Space Cowboy
website in Chinese that even mentions the Liuan bamboo basket process.
Unfortunately no matter what search string I get the Liuan melon seed.
There are websites that detail Anhui tea production but no mention of
this. As mentioned before my Chinatown Liuan came with the Zhong
sticker. My mainland basket came from GuangDong. I haven't seen these
baskets on TaoBao. I just opened up a kilo bag of Yunnan Black Gold.
You'll need a dust mask. The light and wispy whole leaf is more gold
than black. It is the darkest red brew I've seen in a tea almost non
transparent. It tingles the tastebuds. It has a glorious sweet smokey
taste unlike a piney LS. I got one of those BoNay heavy plasticwrap
cakes from HongKong. I think I see characters similar to CangWu LiuBao
but not exactly. I'll give it a try soon to see if it taste more like
nut than grass. I'm still learning even when other interests have
faded from memory.
Jim
Lewis Perin
> [...Liu An...]
>
> Liu Bao tea is originaly from Guangxi province, it got the name also
> from the producing area, which is the Liu Bao village, Wu Cang County.
> Liu Bao tea has loose form, compressed basket form (which the basket is
> bigger than the Liu An tea from Anhui), beeng cha from, tuo cha form,
> and different sizes brick form.
> Liu Bao tea is in fact a fully fermented black tea, it can be drunk
> fresh or aged, and the aged one is usually used as the medicine by the
> local people.
Sorry, I'm not sure I understand you completely here. Are you saying
Liu Bao is fully oxidized (hong cha) that is post-fermented?
Lewis Perin
> SEb wrote:
> >
> > Liu An is not the loose version of Liu Bao. They are not even from
> > the same province. Liu An is from Ahnui while Liu Bao is from
> > Guangxi.
>
> Then somebody better have Roy and ITC change their webpage indicating
> the location of Liuan as such:
>
> http://www.imperialtea.com/AB1002000Store/product.asp?CustomerID=241854&ACBSessionID=yk3lSnfnxoQSQC4HuC1p&SID=2&Product_ID=66&Category_ID=23
ITC is in some ways an excellent vendor, but this isn't the only
questionable information on their site. They recommend 3-5 minutes as
a steep time in gongfu preparation of oolong:
http://www.imperialtea.com/classroom/GongfuPrep.asp
SEb
Red tea (hong cha) is oxidized while black tea (hei cha) is fermented.
So that would make the liu bao and the cooked pu erh black tea as they
are fermented.
SEb