>IMHO we are just wasting time here. The 1.5 billion Chinese will call
it
>what they feel like calling it disregarding of what rec.food.drink.tea

>pontificate and anyone here educated enough to know what puerh is
already
>know what it is, so what is the point?


Firstly, not all Chinese people know tea; there is one sitting right
next to me that probably wouldn't know the difference anyway. This is
where the problem comes from, not from the language itself. People
will call it what people will call it, but I'm just saying that I've
seen in most good books on the subject that it's a class all it's own.
The books that I saw it called 'hei cha' weren't as informative as the
ones that referred to it as something it's own category.

My only point was to just relay some info that I found; I am not trying
to reclassify it at all. I think it's valid and interesting
discussion.

> And why invent "new" category when the Chinese
>one has no confusion in it?

And, yes, to many lay tea drinkers in China it's just as damningly (if
that's a word) confusing. I've heard some tea drinkers of whom were
Chinese refer to pu'er as everything from red to Wulong, and they've
said it with such authoritarian fervor, that you would believe them if
you didn't know the contrary.

Speaking about language and linguistics, I blame the British for the
confusion between red and black tea. For some reason they translated
the character for "hong" (which is red) into black...so when you see
"China Black Tea" on some box with some characters beneath it, as you
invariably will, it's actually saying China Red Tea...which just makes
matters more confusing.

Mydnight *grinds some beans*