Oolong grades

Hi,
grabbed a 50g foil pouch of a Tie Guan Yin (Wuyi Mtn. Teas) for a
change of pace yesterday, imported and packed by a company in Siliguri,
80km downhill.
The label says "first grade" / "tou deng", but IMO that tea didn't
excactly steep up to that standard (heavily roasted stuff, not my cup)
.. I didn't remember the term "tou deng" so I visited the carp and
googled for an answer but all in vain, xcept a not too detailed page I
found in google's cache.
Any input on mainland Oolong grades or links to enlightening pages
anybody ? T's all soo long ago ...

TIA,
Karsten / Darjeeling

The Chinese characters for "tou deng" are î^µÈ meaning first class.
I don't think using them with Google will be much of a delineator. On
the English side you see terms like Phoenix#1, Imperial Gold, Supreme,
Premium, Grade A which means more lightly roasted or green TKY. Some
new seller yesterday on Ebay had 250g of the greenier chunky looking
TKY I like to see starting at a reserved price. I bid what I thought
was reasonable, didn't make the reserve. This guy is going to sell
alot.

Jim

psyflakem wrote:
> Hi,
> grabbed a 50g foil pouch of a Tie Guan Yin (Wuyi Mtn. Teas) for a
> change of pace yesterday, imported and packed by a company in Siliguri,
> 80km downhill.
> The label says "first grade" / "tou deng", but IMO that tea didn't
> excactly steep up to that standard (heavily roasted stuff, not my cup)
> . I didn't remember the term "tou deng" so I visited the carp and
> googled for an answer but all in vain, xcept a not too detailed page I
> found in google's cache.
> Any input on mainland Oolong grades or links to enlightening pages
> anybody ? T's all soo long ago ...
>
> TIA,
> Karsten / Darjeeling

My Indian friends tell me the cheaper the tea the better the chai. Is
there any local demand for the more expensive DJs? Or is it just
exported? I understand Germany gets the first dibs on the DJ flushes.
Do you recommend any German sites that export to the US that might be
ahead of the curve for the most recent DJs?

Jim

psyflakem wrote:
> Jim wrote:
....I delete some of me and you
> > I assume Chinese teas aren't available locally in India.
> Despite the fact that the indian market (like the rest of world) gets
> more and more flooded with all kinds of chinese stuff AFAICT just a few
> teas made it here (lochanteas.com in Siliguri), and you really have to
> search hard to find any.
>
> > Is there more at play than just economics of Indian teas versus Chinese?
> As far as I can tell the main reason lies in the fact that in the north
> of India most tea ends up as chai, with truckloads of milk/sugar and
> some spices thrown in. East and south of here you can find the same
> "dessert" kind of preparation without milk, but whereever I travelled
> in India overdoses of sugar are a common sight (yuk). Then tea is the
> national drink number one, cheap, even poor folks can afford it.
> The domestic demands are pretty much covered by Indias own production
> so there's not much money to be made here. Tea is something that adds
> liquid a bit of taste and some color to their sugar. One thing I
> discussed with many locals and mentioned before, the average local here
> has no idea of how a med-grade (not to mention high-grade) Darjeeling
> tea tastes like. They use CTC Assam to dilute the sugar-milk mix up
> here. I don't know a single fellow in the entire district, Nepal or
> Sikkim who would drink tea w/o sugar. Never met one.
>
> Karsten / Darjeeling

Space Cowboy wrote:

> My Indian friends tell me the cheaper the tea the better the chai.

Heheh, the tea is probably not supposed to cover the lovely taste of
that sugary milk mess. Prepacked Assam is dirtcheap here, hafta look up
the price if you're interested.

> Is there any local demand for the more expensive DJs?

Not too much of it. I actually never obeserved any local paying more
than ~300 Rps (~ US $ 6.60) for a kg. This stuff CAN have a nice
appearance and CAN smell good but there's nothing in the cup but color.
The fun starts at about double that price.

> Or is it just exported?
Maybe 95 % of the stuff worth mentioning. The other 5% are bought by
tourrrrists.

> I understand Germany gets the first dibs on the DJ flushes.
Yes, as far as I can tell the major part of it. France and Japan come
second.

> Do you recommend any German sites that export to the US that might be
> ahead of the curve for the most recent DJs?

I have no idea. These days I buy my DJs over here, stock up on chinese
leaves in China and really dunno anybody doing Exports from Germania,
but I remeber a few guys who really know DJs.

Jim, you could have PMed me, and I would have sent you some stuff from
here at self cost, but unf. tomorrow my friends shop will be closed and
I'm leaving on Friday.
This guy had most of the stuff I reported on for VERY reasonable
prices.

Most probably I'm back in May. The firsts are still reasonably fresh,
there will be a greater selection and the seconds are just a few weeks
away.

Best,
Karsten / Darjeeling

Sending tea is a PITA. I spent a couple of hours this morning finding
boxes and packing teas to send to my brother. I came up short on tape
and labels so decided to send from local MailBoxes independent store.
It is OOB. Now I have to buy tape,labels and go stand in line at PO.
I don't send teas just because of this and I wouldn't ask anybody to do
it for me. I think some German sites have been previously mentioned
for DJs. There will always be teas others have I can't taste and vice
versa. You never said anything about green and white DJs which was the
rage over here before the pu. If I'm in a tea producing country I'm
looking for sources just like you. I wished some Ebay vendor would
show up from India like the several from China. Does anyone know of an
online store overthere with a good selection? Enjoy your bounty of
tea. Thanks for flushing out the flushes so I know what to look for
and embedded others for giving us the local inside scoop.

Jim

psyflakem wrote:
> Space Cowboy wrote:
....pruning shears...
>> Do you recommend any German sites that export to the US that might be
>> ahead of the curve for the most recent DJs?
> I have no idea. These days I buy my DJs over here, stock up on chinese
> leaves in China and really dunno anybody doing Exports from Germania,
> but I remeber a few guys who really know DJs.
>
> Jim, you could have PMed me, and I would have sent you some stuff from
> here at self cost, but unf. tomorrow my friends shop will be closed and
> I'm leaving on Friday.
> This guy had most of the stuff I reported on for VERY reasonable
> prices.
>
> Most probably I'm back in May. The firsts are still reasonably fresh,
> there will be a greater selection and the seconds are just a few weeks
> away.
>
> Best,
> Karsten / Darjeeling