Another day in Chinatown
 

Most gongfu sets are too expensive for my wallet but I found one for
$15 that is slightly glazed red clay with tea boat and tray,six
cups,teapot and gaiwan. The clay is thin and fragile and probably hot
to the touch. This was the last set but more in about a month. I've
got commercial packaging which shows gaiwan and cups on a boat. Maybe
it is more common to use gaiwan than teapot. I've been looking for a
good commercial brand everyday TieGuanYin. I found a 200g/$10 tin
which is all Chinese inscription except for the brewing instructions
which says can be done 10 times. I can't tell the name of the company.
It is light green taste and infusion with some bush. It came in
nitrogen pack. I got a 300g/$12 very ornate stamped silver tin of
Taiwan Pouchong from Hsin Tung Yang. It is mostly whole slightly
twisted leaf. It is my first cannister with Pouchong characters. It
came in thick cellophane but inner lid and cap. It is comparable in
quality too my local tea shoppe. I know anything I find in my
Chinatown is a tease but I like to hunt and report.

Jim

"Space Cowboy" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> I know anything I find in my
> Chinatown is a tease but I like to hunt and report.

Thanks, it encourages us to explore local brick and mortar shops when we can
:).

--
~~Bluesea~~
Spam is great in musubi but not in email.
Please take out the trash before sending a direct reply.

Unfortunately the local shops I have here are mostly Korean and they carry
mostly the bigger brands like TenRen and the other one whose name I can't
remember at the moment...mostly teabags and herbals that I'm not familiar
enough to even think about playing around with. (Some of the herbals don't
even have the ingredients listed, :( ) However I do find a few things,
and at least they carry a matcha. Most of what this particular store has is
Japanese though, and I prefer Chinese...but well darn it I can't have
everything I want now can I? Lol! My main thing is, at least they carry
half-way decent green tea from somewhere that isn't in a tea bag and that is
sealed in a pouch.

But you should see the giant five-pound bags (full of air holes I imagine)
of Chinese restaurant oolong tea....THin green plastic, it's like a bag of
alfalfa or something...

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

wasn't that a Phil Collins song?

The lovely advantage of knowing your tea markets is that you can go
there and find the actual price of the items before they "put them
together" in a set. Most small cups go for like 1 or 2 yuan (1 dollar
= 8.27 yuan..you do the conversion), a wooden tray can range anywhere
from the lower end of 100 yuan upwards to 2000 yuan, the gaiwan usually
goes, depending on quality, for 15-50 yuan, and your tools usually can
be bought for under 50 yuan. We all know about how expensive pots can
be, so I won't mention it.

What I'm getting at is you can usually get a full set at the market for
much less by buying the pieces seperately.

Further evidence as to why an honest shop would do a killing....there's
a serious lack of them.