Ren Cen Wulong
 

Tonight I purchased some Ren Cen Wulong (ginseng wulong) from a shop
near my flat that specialized in some teas from Taiwan. Not as many
people drink this sort of tea because of it's sweet flavor, so I didn't
know as much about it until tonight; I bought some lower grade before.
I thought this tea was just a novelty and didn't know there was much
depth here.

It's graded in about 3 or 4 cateories: A, AA, AAA, and no grade; AAA
being the best. The AAA might be nearly impossible to find now because
there aren't enough high quality tea trees to produce such good leaves.
I learned the other day from an expert that has experience in planting
tea trees himself that 3-4 year old trees (young trees) are the best
when it comes to Taiwan teas (Gao Shan...high mountain) and Tie Guan
Yin. The expert is from Taiwan/Fujian and has been in the business for
15 or more years.

The tea itself had a floral odor with a strong, sweet aftertaste. It
has a very pronounced ko gan (residual flavor in the mouth) and it
makes your throat feel sweet. The boss assured to me that it was AA,
and had some certificates to back it up. All-in-all a good experience.


I recommend you pick up some if you have the chance; I think it would
be a good beginners tea for your non tea drinking friends because it's
fairly easy to appreciate. Also, if you are a teacher like me, it can
make your throat feel better after a long day of lecturing!

Mydnight, thanks for the first-hand information, it's wonderful Could you
please tell me what the difference is between hui gan, and ko gan that you
mention in this post? I've been keeping track of my Chinese tea terms you
see...

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
"Mydnight" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> Tonight I purchased some Ren Cen Wulong (ginseng wulong) from a shop
> near my flat that specialized in some teas from Taiwan. Not as many
> people drink this sort of tea because of it's sweet flavor, so I didn't
> know as much about it until tonight; I bought some lower grade before.
> I thought this tea was just a novelty and didn't know there was much
> depth here.
>
> It's graded in about 3 or 4 cateories: A, AA, AAA, and no grade; AAA
> being the best. The AAA might be nearly impossible to find now because
> there aren't enough high quality tea trees to produce such good leaves.
> I learned the other day from an expert that has experience in planting
> tea trees himself that 3-4 year old trees (young trees) are the best
> when it comes to Taiwan teas (Gao Shan...high mountain) and Tie Guan
> Yin. The expert is from Taiwan/Fujian and has been in the business for
> 15 or more years.
>
> The tea itself had a floral odor with a strong, sweet aftertaste. It
> has a very pronounced ko gan (residual flavor in the mouth) and it
> makes your throat feel sweet. The boss assured to me that it was AA,
> and had some certificates to back it up. All-in-all a good experience.
>
>
> I recommend you pick up some if you have the chance; I think it would
> be a good beginners tea for your non tea drinking friends because it's
> fairly easy to appreciate. Also, if you are a teacher like me, it can
> make your throat feel better after a long day of lecturing!
>

Surely. I'll try to explain to the best of my understanding.


'Kou' means mouth.
'Hui' means after you drink something or you eat something, you can
still taste the flavor.
'Gan' means the flavor between sweet and bitter.

'Kou gan' means that you can still feel the gan flavor in your mouth
while 'hui gan' means you can feel the residual flavor
(sweetness/bitterness) in your throat. You are mainly looking for hui
gan when you drink tie guan yin or the Taiwan teas, and you usually
have to pay a high price to experience real hui gan. A boss friend of
ours let us try some Tie Guan Yin that probably retails for
1500-2000RMB for 500g and you can really feel the gan.

TenRen has a series called King's Tea http://tenrens.com/kingstea.html
that uses Wisconsin ginseng and the best Taiwan oolong to create the
desired accentuated oolong aftertaste. It isn't cheap. I've never
tried any because I'm allergic to ginseng hot or cool.

Jim

Mydnight wrote:
> Surely. I'll try to explain to the best of my understanding.
>
>
> 'Kou' means mouth.
> 'Hui' means after you drink something or you eat something, you can
> still taste the flavor.
> 'Gan' means the flavor between sweet and bitter.
>
> 'Kou gan' means that you can still feel the gan flavor in your mouth
> while 'hui gan' means you can feel the residual flavor
> (sweetness/bitterness) in your throat. You are mainly looking for
hui
> gan when you drink tie guan yin or the Taiwan teas, and you usually
> have to pay a high price to experience real hui gan. A boss friend
of
> ours let us try some Tie Guan Yin that probably retails for
> 1500-2000RMB for 500g and you can really feel the gan.

TenRen is the devil. They sell low quality tea as 'king's tea' for
huge prices. Here on mainland China and back on the continent I've
been to a few of their shops, and I've come to this same conclusion. I
just recommend staying away from them totally.

And, they do high quality wulong leaves to make some of the better ren
cen wulong. They cannot make the AAA quality anymore because there is
a lack of the higher quality trees to produce such high quality leaves.

Some of the highest quality ren cen can price out at like 1000RMB per
half kilo, so I would guess it's not some novelty tea or parlor trick.