"Space Cowboy" > wrote in message

As you can read UTF 8 unicode, I have written the Chinese characters. I hope
that's OK to do that on this group.
I give you the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation when I find it (I don't speak
Chinese, only read some). Keep in mind most Taiwanese speak another dialect
than Mandarin.

> I'm getting close. I know the Chinese characters for BaiHao and for
> sake of argument means WhiteDown.

....

>My source says Taiwan Champagne aka
> oriental beauty is BaiHai
....
> others saying
> BaiHao,SilverNeedles,WhiteDown,WhiteTip,oolong oriental beauty are the
> same.

You introduced the confusion. You've said "silver needles" (白毫銀針 bai hao
yin zhen).

>I assumed Hao and Hai would derive from the same Chinese root
> character (only a guess). Hao is a reverse J with a couple of -
> though the middle stalk of the character.

That's mao in Mandarin, not hao

白毛　"white hair" bai mao
白毫 "white tip" bai hao
白葉 "white leaf" bai ye

台湾白毫烏龍茶 Taiwan bai hao wu long cha (Formosa White Tip Oolong)
=(formerly)東方美人 dong fand mei ren (oriental beauty) 　

90% of the time, googles find those 2 associated in Japanese and Chinese
webpages. That's what I read on packages usually. Other writings are rarer.

I have found a few pages with 白毛烏龍茶, some for "Taiwanese Oriental
Beauty", others for a cheaper one from mainland China.

I write it 白葉烏龍茶 (bai ye oolong cha) for shopping in Taipei and Japan,
because the character for "tip" is not a common character in Japanese, and
leaf is pronounced "ha"in Japanese... A Taiwanese shop keepers that speak
Japanese told me to do that, and I have noticed it was done in several shops
in Japan. Logical spelling mistake. It is innaccurate, but as it is the only
whitish Taiwan oolong, no confusion is possible with "oolonged white tea".

"Oriental beauty" has another name 香檳烏龍茶 (chiang * wu long), fragrant *
oolong. It is rarely used.

> I learned that
> here from the gal in Japan who thought I couldn't immerse myself in
> Japanese culture by simply strolling the streets of an established pre
> WWII community located adjacent to downtown. All I can say only the
> street addresses for the mailman are in english.

There were street addresses and mailmen that could speak English in Japan
before WWII ? Now, both species are complety extinct.

Kuri