And sometimes teas sold by a name
>(especially popular ones like Long Jing) can be not really Long Jing at all
>(as per another group, "counterfeit").

indeed. I encountered a coffee shop that was telling small amounts of
tea and also doing a by-the-glass thing that had "zhejiang lengcheng"
(long jing in cantonese). I was rather excited, to see the label but
when I looked in the jar, it was hardly as it was being marketed. It
smelled slightly like longjing, but it was basically cheap red
tea...to my disappointment. What i really hate is when someone tries
to tell me that they are selling high quality chinese tea, then they
have no idea what they are talking about when I ask them
questions....such as, 'what kind of tea is it?' heh.

>
>But Mydnight, yes I can see the similarities in the rolled aspect between
>Tai Guan Yin and Gunpowder, though to me (and let me just say the gunpowder
>I have at the moment is cheap...nevertheless I kinda like it...) they don't
>taste at all similar. I would HOPE (grins and crosses fingers) that if I
>opened a container marked gunpowder that actually had an oolong in it, that
>I'd be able to tell by taste. If I opened a container marked Tai Guan Yin
>that had gunpowder in it though...that would upset me just a little, lol. I
>ordered around five or six different kinds of Assam about a month ago and
>after drinking on them I can now tell the difference between them without
>looking...training myself.
>

I wonder about that. I don't doubt your palate or anything, hehe, but
I really had no idea what wulong tasted like until I got some while I
was in China, even though I had drank wulong before in the USA.
And, even then, the variety of tastes can be confusing when it comes
to exactly what type it is. Most tea masters can't discern between a
regular wulong and some types of tie guan yin.

What in the devil is gunpowder tea anyway?


Mydnight

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thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.