As for Iron Buddha all I could see was the second character for
Goddess only after you pointed it out. I flipped back and forth
between the two characters for Iron and Mercy and couldn't match them
on the tin. For the two big black characters I have packaging for the
top character which means Enjoying. I couldn't find it in any online
dictionaries. I couldn't find the lower character. I agree with the
original poster I've never seen Tie Guan Yin that looked like this. I
always think it is heavily oxidized. I'm taking a picture to my
Chinatown and see if I can find some. The leaf is still on the stem?
I guess some pruning would be normal to keep the plant under control
and you encounter broken stem in lesser grades but not like that. One
of the most interesting tea discoveries I seen from Chinatown. I'm
jealous.

Jim

(Dr. Gee) wrote in message >...
> In article <EZyvc.617880$Pk3.116337@pd7tw1no>, "auntymo" > wrote:
> >
> >the only english on the container was not very helpful - 'zhong guo ming
> >cha' - which i think probably means something extremely vague such as
> >'chinese tea'.
>
> literally means "Chinese famous tea" (means "fine tea")
>
> >
> >the container:
> >http://www.skizzers.org/auntymo/mysterytea1.jpg
>
> the top 4 red characters in a box mean "fine grade fine tea" (my poor
> translation)
>
> then the 2 red characters can translate "top grade"
>
> the 2 big black characters mean "tea dao (tau) (way of tea)?
>
> the 3 red ones mean "te guan yin" (iron buddha).
>
> bye now,
>
> pam @ home ¤p¬}
>
> Pam's Ode to Spammers & Telemarketers
>
> May all spammers & telemarketers die an agonizing death; have no
> burial places; their souls be chased by demons in Gehenna from one
> room to another for 1000 years.