Menghai cake - real or fake?

I liked this tea enough that I bought a stack of it from mandjs. It's
ageing really nicely (and fast), getting warmer and woodier with each
year. As I'm not planning on selling them, I don't care too much if
they're legit, just that they're really good.

I noticed that they don't have that characteristic Menghai taste that
I've found in 7542 cakes of various vintages and their Jia Ji tuo chas.
Looking at the leaf, it does seem to fit the description of a wild tea
(as described by teahub and the teamaster blog).

Cheers,

Cameron

I managed to get a stack for about $120 shipped. Michael Ryan gave me
a buy six get one free deal and I had them sent surface. Check his
ebay store. He has this same cake for $17 last I checked.

Cheers,

Cameron

We have established offline that the cake M&J has online and the cake Gyorgy
bought are not the same cake.

The cake is not from Menghai, so the next question of whether it is from Yi
Wu also becomes questionable.

Production of "wild" tea leaves from Yi Wu at the moment is about 60 tons
per year, inlcuding true wild arbor trees. I'll leave you to figure the
amount of wild arbor leaves going into your cakes.

"Wild Grown Leaves" or "Wild Arbor Leaves" definition 1: leaves from wild
trees; 2: leaves from plantations there were abandoned.

Danny

"Cameron Lewis" <c.lewis@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:1126840324.799274.171340@g14g2000cwa. o...
>I liked this tea enough that I bought a stack of it from mandjs. It's
> ageing really nicely (and fast), getting warmer and woodier with each
> year. As I'm not planning on selling them, I don't care too much if
> they're legit, just that they're really good.
>
> I noticed that they don't have that characteristic Menghai taste that
> I've found in 7542 cakes of various vintages and their Jia Ji tuo chas.
> Looking at the leaf, it does seem to fit the description of a wild tea
> (as described by teahub and the teamaster blog).
>
> Cheers,
>
> Cameron
>

no Michael, it;s rein...

haha!

Yeeeeehar! Ride them Cowboy!

Danny

"Michael Plant" <mplant@pipeline.com> wrote in message
news:BF502D84.38EBF%mplant@pipeline.com...
> samarkand4329c073$1@news.starhub.net.sg9/15/05 14:43samarkand@uk2.net
>
> [Danny responding to Gyorky...]
>
>> But importantly, I must stress again, is that you enjoy the tea, be it Da
>> Yi
>> or Big Green Tea.
>
> Yes, well said indeed. Let taste reign (or is that rain?).
> Michael
>

Cameron Lewis wrote:

>I managed to get a stack for about $120 shipped. Michael Ryan gave me
> a buy six get one free deal and I had them sent surface. Check his
> ebay store. He has this same cake for $17 last I checked.

Thank you! Yes, I also ordered my cakes from his ebay store, which meant $8
less for each cake and $3 less for the shipping of each one compared to his
other site. It was just easier (shorter) to post the link to his other site.
The images and the descriptions are (almost) the same.

$120 sounds like a good deal. How long was the actual shipping time?

Gyorgy

Cameron Lewis

>I liked this tea enough that I bought a stack of it from mandjs. It's
> ageing really nicely (and fast), getting warmer and woodier with each
> year.

Sounds very promising. How long time have you had them?

> I noticed that they don't have that characteristic Menghai taste that
> I've found in 7542 cakes of various vintages and their Jia Ji tuo chas.

I do not know about your cakes, but mine are not from the Menghai factory.
As mentioned in an earlier post, the text of the wrapper/sticker is
different from the displayed ones. Danny was so kind to translate the
wrappers of them both. The last line of the wrapper displayed on Michael's
site says: "Produced by Menghai Factory of Yunnan Province", while on my
actual cake is written: "Produced from Yi Wu Old Tea Leaves in Xishuangbanna
of Yunnan Province", without mentioning the factory.

I am curious: Is your wrapper completely identical with the displayed ones?
If you are interested, I can send you the scanned images of my
wrapper/sticker.

Gyorgy