I woke up this morning expecting to do battle and came across a post
discussing tea. All I can say to Kuri is thanks very much. This is a
rosetta stone post resolving the use of BaiHao and a Chinese character
is a thousand words. When I first saw the post with Google all I saw
were boxes for unknown characters. You have to use View: Original
Format for UTF-8. Only the second character from the left for Taiwan
bai hao wu long cha didn't seem to translate (box). I'm not going to
quibble but All the Tea in China by Chow and Kramer use the characters
for "white hair" to describe Yinzhen Bai Hao. I'll use the marketing
name Silver Needles and Oriental Beauty so not to confuse myself. My
Japan reference is in my metro area you can immerse yourself in
Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Arabic, Spanish languages without
leaving the US. Any travel required is just an exercise in geography.
In fact we have the only University outside of Japan where all
subjects are in Japanese. The students come here to immerse
themselves in our culture and language.

Thanks again,
Jim

"cc" > wrote in message >...
> "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