Ah, I see. That does clear it up a bit, Mike, thank-you. When you get a
taste of a Meng Hai 2005 do please share your thoughts with us as I have
been thinking about eventually trying some of theirs...it seems like it's a
name brand, as close as you can get to one anyway. I have been concentrating
more on green teas lately, I think it has to do with the summer coming in.

Melinda

--
"The country has entered an era in which
questions are not asked, for questions are
daughters of disquiet or arrogance, both
fruits of temptation and the food of sacrilege." Djaout
"Mike Petro" > wrote in message
...
> Hi Melinda,
>
> I happen to be good friends with the webmaster of that particular
> site, here is what his real "intent" is.
>
> "While the price is quite high, it is actually an attractive price for
> this high quality pu'er. The flavor is very representative of Meng Hai
> Tea Factory's excellent reputation, and is well suited for Collectors
> and Connoisseurs."
>
> You have to understand that the prices on this site are typically
> about a tenth of the prices you would see in the USA. They are
> charging the rough equivalent of $300 for a case (30kg) of 5 year old
> cooked\black\sheng cake which works out to be about $3.50 each, expect
> to pay $20 and up here in the US for the same cake. Most black cakes
> sell for even less there but since it does come from the Meng Hai Tea
> Factory it is considered to be better than average. The other
> consideration is that older Meng Hai teas are considered very valuable
> by the Chinese right now because the Meng Hai factory got bought by a
> big conglomerate (Bowin Corp) back in October 2004. Teas made before
> the buyout have shot up greatly in value. I am real interested to see
> what the Meng Hai 2005 teas will be like.
>
> Sasha, this site has two interesting Bamboo Pu'ers, the best tasting
> and most interesting one is made from YiWu Mountain Ancient Tree
> leaves is
> http://www.yuncha.com.cn/php/yc_prod..._id=1111996159
> and the other one is
> http://www.yuncha.com.cn/php/yc_prod..._id=1111737891
> both are made in the Dai Nationality style. However this site does NOT
> cater to the US market, they are strictly Chinese wholesalers, you
> need to order a minimum of a case of anything you buy from them. If
> you want a good source for authentic Dai Bamboo puer email me offline
> and I will hook you up. You can see the stuff I am talking about at
> http://www.pu-erh.net/graphics/DSCN0977.jpg take notice of the scorch
> marks from where it was roasted over an open fire. I have a cool video
> showing how they make the stuff and it shows them sticking the bamboo
> canes directly into the fire to roast them a bit. The scorch marks are
> a good indicator of traditional processing, modern metheds often use
> baking rather than fire roasting.
>
> Mike
> http://www.pu-erh.net
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, 11 Apr 2005 07:47:57 -0700, "Melinda" >
> wrote:
>
>>I know we've all probably seen the odd translations of Chinese into
>>English...the second page Jim notes has this to offer: "
>>This sexual price is extremely higher than, it may be said the low-price
>>quality merchandise. This caffeine fully manifested the courageous sea
>>ripe
>>tea pure strong merit, suited the collection or tastes. "
>>
>>Ah-hem. Yeah.....
>>Thanks for the links Jim! Oh BTW, do you (or anybody here for that matter)
>>know how to type out Chinese characters on one's keyboard instead of
>>having
>>to punch in Unicode? I supposedly have the Chinese and Japanese character
>>sets loaded into my Windows but I don't know how to use them.
>>
>>Melinda
>