Hi Alex,

Let's put the question on age aside first.

Look at the wrapper, is there a 'Cha' logo? What is the colour of the logo?

Look at the tea itself. Does it look light green? Dark green? Brown? Dark
brown? Black?

If there's a sticker stuck on the cake, take a look at it. Is there a small
line of wormy characters on the lower right of the sticker?

How many characters are there on the sticker?

Is there a logo on the sticker? What does it look like?

Smell the center of the cake, where the 'crater' is. What does the smell
reminds you of?

Now smell the edge of the cake. What does the smell reminds you of?

When you said you sampled the tea today, how did you break the cake? Did you
broke off the edge, or from the centre?

Does it break easily or so you have to hack it?

What does the brewed leaves look like?

Danny

"Alex Krupp" > wrote in message
...
>I bought some puer in Kunming (capital of Yunnan) last week when I was
>there with my family. The guy poured my some and it was the most delicious
>puer I have ever had, though certainly I'm not the most experienced
>drinker. Anyway the guy said it was seven years old, and it tasted very
>floral. However the sample wasn't from the cake I bought, and not speaking
>Chinese it seems there isn't really any way to tell if I got ripped off or
>not. Later on I showed it to a guy who spoke Chinese, and he said that it
>didn't say the age on it so it was unlikely to actually be that old.
>
> On the wrapper it says Yunnan Chi Tse Beeng Cha and on the paper inside it
> says Yunnan Chitsu Pingcha, and that it is manufactured from puercha my
> the Mengchai tea factory Xishuangbanna in Yunnan. Anyway I guess there
> isn't really any way to know until I taste it, but do tourists frequently
> get ripped off at those little stores beside the road? I only payed 70
> yuan (9 USD) for it, so it isn't too big a deal, but I am just wondering
> what experiences others have had with these guys.
>
> Alex
>