> >The vendor with the
> >highest quality tea I've ever tasted in fact refuses to name his teas
> >-- he'll just present us with a tasting of a half-dozen greener
> >oolongs, never saying if it's a ti kuan yin varietal or something
> >different. *He wants the taste to speak for itself. *I understand this
> >was a common approach to tea sales in China before Western customers
> >demanded fancy names and concrete classifications.
>
> I would not buy from this vendor. I find this arrogant. I have no
> problem with him offering this as an option, but when he gets to
> refusing information, he has forgotten who the customer is. ;-)
>


Actually, Stephen (the proprietor of Spring Cottage Tea House in
Richmond B.C.) is anything but arrogant. It's not really a case of
withholding information, since most of the teas in question are from
small batches on tiny farms (including a farm in Fujian owned by his
wife's parents, which produces the most amazing silver needle) and his
stock thus varies constantly. For him it's just more accurate to say
"here's a really good green oolong to try" than to slap an arbitrary
marketing title on it like "Green Dragon Spring #3" that the farmer
would never have called it.

When I see web sites or catalogs with a dozen types of long chings
with labels like "Imperial Dragon Well", "Superior Dragon Well", "Fine
Grade Dragon Well" and "Dragon Well #1", they don't mean much to me --
I'd rather just taste them all and decide for myself, which is exactly
the experience Stephen provides for me.