Bi Luo Chun is from JiangSu province. One grade is oblong and snail
shape. Gunpowder tea from ZheJiang province is two grades pinhead and
pearl. The shinier the leaf the fresher which is a desired
characterisic of smaller pinhead while larger pearl is end of season
old leaf. The names for Chinese teas comes from the fog of history.
You can trace each name to a locale and way of processing.

Jim

S. Chancellor wrote:
> On 2006-01-22 15:06:55 -0800, "
> > said:
>
> > S. Chancellor wrote:
> >> Is bi luo chun considered a type of gunpowder tea? If not, what is it?
> >>
> >> -S.
> >
> > Bi Luo Chun (or Piluochun) is a green tea, it is a different tea to
> > Gunpowder, for sure. I have seen types that are curled gently rather
> > than compressed into pellets, which is because guess that for quality
> > tea it would be impossible to make pellets using just the bud and first
> > leaf. The quality of Bi Luo Chun (originally grown in Dong Ting,
> > Jiangsu?) is a lot higher than Gunpowder (originally grown in Anhui?)
> > in general.
>
> > From what I gather (correct me if I am wrong) there are so many subtle
> > differences in Chinese teas that to categorise something as part of
> > something else is rather difficult.
>
>
> I thought that gunpowder only referred to the way the tea is processed?
> As far as I can tell the bi luo chun and this gunpowder looks the
> same? Speaking of which,
> what is Extra Gunpowder and Special Gunpowder and what is it compared
> to just regular ol' gunpowder? Are either of those the same as Pinhead
> gunpowder?
>
> -S.