wrote:
> With all due respect, there is no such thing as raw pu erh. My family
> is in the tea plantation business for four generations. I have worked
> in our plantation for over 20 years. May be you are refering to green
> pu erh. It's colour looks like green tea. But that is the biggest
> misconception of tea outside China.

Greg,

With all due respect I think you are getting tangled up in language
translation issues. Over the years as different people have done
business with the USA the translations have varied a bit. Be it right,
wrong, or indifferent there are a variety of descriptive terms
currently in widespread use in the USA market for the 2 catagories of
Pu'er. They a

Green - Black
Sheng - Shu
Raw - Ripe
Uncooked - Cooked

I have a friend who is a leading Tea broker in Kunming. He is employed
by the company that owns the (Yunnang) Tea Market in Kunming as well as
several of the booths inside of the Tea Market. He literally brokers
tons of Pu-er every month. I can show you many conversations where he
uses the terms raw/ripe to describe sheng/shu pu'er. It is all in how
it is translated into English.

Along the same lines you will see different translations for the word
Pu'er itself, including puer, puerh, pu-erh, etc.

What is the name of your Family Business? What types of tea do you
grow/process?

If you are so experienced I am surprised that you would recommend a
company (Fah Guo Mountain Tea) who sells expensive Pu'er without even
stating the vintage or the factory or even the type of pu'er that it
is. I know that this is NOT the way business is done in China. Are you
associated with that company somehow?

Regarding the newsgroups, proper newsgroup etiquette (netiquette)
dictates that you quote the original post you are responding to, or at
least closely follow the thread lines. It makes it much easier to
understand which conversation (thread) you are commenting on. See
http://www.newsreaders.com/guide/netiquette.html for more info on
netiquette.

Mike
http://www.pu-erh.net