A Chinese lady gave me this lovely box of tea but could not add much
information about it. I have taken some pic: does any one know more
about it?

<http://i2.tinypic.com/qxrx44.jpg>

<http://i2.tinypic.com/qxrynr.jpg>

<http://i2.tinypic.com/qxryvk.jpg>

<http://i2.tinypic.com/qxrz0g.jpg>

Colour of infusion is very pale, taste mild, very distinctive coffeine
effect. I would list it as a high quality, but would be glad to trace it
down

Thank you

--
a.

angela wrote:
> A Chinese lady gave me this lovely box of tea but could not add much
> information about it. I have taken some pic: does any one know more
> about it?

Looks like a white tea to me, and a fairly decent grade at that. White
tea is brewed similarly to green: Water just below boiling (bring water
to boil and wait about 30 seconds off of heat) and steeping time
varies. Some whites need just a very brief steep of 30 seconds to a
minute, while others need more time upwards of 3 minutes.

I will have to work on translating the packaging, I'm no expert
there... but I do know there are many on this newsgroup who are so they
may beat me to it.

- Dominic

Hi Dominic,

I'll let you work on it then. :")

Angela, your pictures of the box isn't complete, is it? There should be
another picture of it, or the top and bottom, or of the packaging that holds
the tea. The name of the tea is very hazy, as 3 areas in China that produce
teas have the same name.

Danny


"Dominic T." > wrote in message
oups.com...
>
> angela wrote:
>> A Chinese lady gave me this lovely box of tea but could not add much
>> information about it. I have taken some pic: does any one know more
>> about it?
>
> Looks like a white tea to me, and a fairly decent grade at that. White
> tea is brewed similarly to green: Water just below boiling (bring water
> to boil and wait about 30 seconds off of heat) and steeping time
> varies. Some whites need just a very brief steep of 30 seconds to a
> minute, while others need more time upwards of 3 minutes.
>
> I will have to work on translating the packaging, I'm no expert
> there... but I do know there are many on this newsgroup who are so they
> may beat me to it.
>
> - Dominic
>

Not high-brow beating you to it, no such intention.

I'm asking Angela for more pictures with clues o what tea this is so you can
work on the translation.

Danny

"Dominic T." > wrote in message
oups.com...
>
> samarkand wrote:
>> Hi Dominic,
>>
>> I'll let you work on it then. :")
>>
>> Angela, your pictures of the box isn't complete, is it? There should be
>> another picture of it, or the top and bottom, or of the packaging that
>> holds
>> the tea. The name of the tea is very hazy, as 3 areas in China that
>> produce
>> teas have the same name.
>>
>> Danny
>
> heh, I make no bones about me being novice at best on the translating
> side of things. Some basic Chinese (and mostly relating to tea) and
> Korean are my only areas of knowledge.
>
> As I said I know that many of you around here are fluent/much more
> advanced than I could ever hope to be... some native to the language.
> Feel free to beat me to it, I'm at work and have little time until
> later to even pull up the photo's.
>
> - Dominic
>

Dominic T. > wrote:

> Angela is there any information about the importer of this tea, or
> anything else at all to go on?
>
Thank you Dominic

here are two more links:

on a box-side, in tiny little writing:
<http://i2.tinypic.com/qz1a9i.jpg>

on top:
<http://i2.tinypic.com/qz1af4.jpg>

I don't know much more about it. It's a present she got from a Chinese
cook, quite keen on tea and she passed the box to me, mentioning that it
was a quite rare and "old fashion" tea... That's about all.

It looks very nice also after infusion: plenty of buds and very closed
leaves

--
a.

samarkand > wrote:

> Hi Dominic,
>
> I'll let you work on it then. :")
>
> Angela, your pictures of the box isn't complete, is it?

now it is, unfortunately (please see the last two links I just posted).
In its full splendor, the box it's he

<http://i2.tinypic.com/qz42ud.jpg>

Thanks again. By the way, I like it very much and would be glad to know
a bit more about it...

--
a.

angela wrote:
> Thanks again. By the way, I like it very much and would be glad to know
> a bit more about it...

Thanks for the extra info Angela... however, I am at a loss for any
information. I have never seen this packaging and there are no
instantly recognizable characters to me on it. There are no "cha" (tea)
characters even.

I still am almost 100% sure it is a white tea, and as I said before a
very good grade. I'm really hoping someone else around here will shed
some light on this as I'm now interested to find out as well.

- Dominic

> I still am almost 100% sure it is a white tea

I agree, it looks to me like a white tea.

Well, looking at the packaging, it seems the name of the tea is Ling
Yan Ming Qian Cha �岩明�茶。 Never heard of it before.

But from the name, it's a spring tea, picked sometime before the Qing
Ming Festival, which usually falls on April 4 or 5.

Other than that, I have no idea. Web searches in Chinese don't pull up
any info on this tea.

hi Dominic,

The box packaging is generic. The company that produces this box has
several of similar designs in different colour. These boxes are designed as
gift-packs. Hoever, some tea companies who prefer to package their own teas
but refuse to pay a design fee on the packaging will approach this company
and have their teas packaged in the design as you see. The tea company can
also customise the package to include the name of their own tea.

In this case, Angela's last post with the pics showed that the company *may
be* called 'Ling Yan'. The name of the tea is in the 4th pic of the
previous post, called "Ling Yan Ming Qian Cha" - The pre-Ming (early spring,
around early March) tea from Ling Yan.

Unfortunately, both the name of the tea and the area of production are
ambiguously generic. However, since it says "Ming Qian", early srping tea,
this rules out very much the White Tea speculation. White tea is produced
in the later months. It is a green tea using young flush with lots of down,
similar to the Bi Luo Chun.

The other 4 characters all over the box in pic 3 are "Han Mo Ming Xiang" -
Han Mo means to pen a letter, here it indicates also the fragrance of the
ink; Ming Xiang means fragrance of Tea.

The lines of characters at the bottom of the gold box in the centre are
excerpts from a poem by Admiral Zheng Ban Qiao, but it is misquoted in the
large print...the lines read, in translation:

A few sprigs of black inked Orchids
On paper from Xuan De,
Bitter Tea in a cup
From the kilns of Cheng Hua.

Kinda *Hakku* I guess, to evoke a tonal picture.

The tea, is from Ling Yan. Ling Yan can be a company, or a place. As a
place, there are at least three with the same names in China, but my guess
is the one in Jinan city in Shangdong province. This is the place where the
monks first advocated drinking green tea to stay alert through long prayers.
This area still produces green tea that looks similar.

I think that's about all.

Danny

Hey Danny,

What are the white on black 'hieroglyphics' I see in the upper right
hand corner of this pictu
http://i2.tinypic.com/qxrz0g.jpg

Is it some form of ancient Chinese? Sometimes I see something similar
on Puer wrappers.

Thanks,
Jim

samarkand wrote:
....everything but...
> I think that's about all.
>
> Danny

Hey Jim,

That's Zhuan Shu, a form of calligraphy that is often found in chinese
seals.

The words are similar to these in black...

<http://i2.tinypic.com/qxrynr.jpg> "Han Mo Ming Xiang"...

Danny


"Space Cowboy" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> Hey Danny,
>
> What are the white on black 'hieroglyphics' I see in the upper right
> hand corner of this pictu
> http://i2.tinypic.com/qxrz0g.jpg
>
> Is it some form of ancient Chinese? Sometimes I see something similar
> on Puer wrappers.
>
> Thanks,
> Jim
>
> samarkand wrote:
> ...everything but...
>> I think that's about all.
>>
>> Danny
>

Oh now I SEE. I'll go back and look at some of those wrappers. I knew
hieroglyphics was the wrong term to use.

Thanks,
Jim

samarkand wrote:
> Hey Jim,
>
> That's Zhuan Shu, a form of calligraphy that is often found in chinese
> seals.
>
> The words are similar to these in black...
>
> <http://i2.tinypic.com/qxrynr.jpg> "Han Mo Ming Xiang"...
>
> Danny
>
>
> "Space Cowboy" > wrote in message
> ups.com...
> > Hey Danny,
> >
> > What are the white on black 'hieroglyphics' I see in the upper right
> > hand corner of this pictu
> > http://i2.tinypic.com/qxrz0g.jpg
> >
> > Is it some form of ancient Chinese? Sometimes I see something similar
> > on Puer wrappers.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Jim

Space Cowboy wrote:
> Oh now I SEE. I'll go back and look at some of those wrappers. I knew
> hieroglyphics was the wrong term to use.
>
> Thanks,
> Jim

Personally, I liked the "hieroglyphics" term... I'm sure there is some
ancient chinese calligrapher turning over in his grave though

- Dominic

Hey Danny,

I can't tell you how long I stared at the meaning of this calligraphy
before getting a clue from you.

http://i2.tinypic.com/qzot4y.jpg

Jim

samarkand wrote:
> Hey Jim,
>
> That's Zhuan Shu, a form of calligraphy that is often found in chinese
> seals.
>
> The words are similar to these in black...
>
> <http://i2.tinypic.com/qxrynr.jpg> "Han Mo Ming Xiang"...
>
> Danny
>
>
> "Space Cowboy" > wrote in message
> ups.com...
> > Hey Danny,
> >
> > What are the white on black 'hieroglyphics' I see in the upper right
> > hand corner of this pictu
> > http://i2.tinypic.com/qxrz0g.jpg
> >
> > Is it some form of ancient Chinese? Sometimes I see something similar
> > on Puer wrappers.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Jim

:")

I can't agree more on the beauty and complexity of the characters!

Jim, the character you showed is one of the veriety for the character that
means 'Tea'. If you look at the center 'pole' (it does look like a
Mayflower pole with 2 tassles hanging down from its side...haha!) it has a
bar on its top, and anothr bar through it.

With these 2 bars, it is pronounced as 'Tu' - in the old days of Lu Yu it
means 'Bitter Tea'. The modern meaning of this character is 'weed'.

Without the top bar, it is the 'Cha' that we are familiar with. In the old
days, anything that can be brewed is considered 'Tea', however, there were
different characters to indicate either the type, pick, or preparation for
it. Lu Yu made the character "Cha' as the uniformed character for 'Tea',
but the notion that any leafy brew is 'Cha' remained, which gave rise to
much confusion...

[niisonge]
Quite a few characters in Chinese have variant forms of writing. For
example, the word for "cup" ?? It uses the wood radical ?? But
then, that should indicate the cup is probably made out of wood. Then,
in another variant form, you could replace the wood radical with the
dish radical ? on the bottom of the character

[Danny]
?, "Min" is the collective term for vessels, not just ? - cup. The
character ? cannot be used singularly if it is to indicate Tea cup, the
character "Cha" will have to accompany it...the item must also be made of
metal, silver, copper etc to be able to use the character. It is not
usually used on vessel that is made of porcelain.

Danny

"niisonge" > wrote in message
ups.com...

> I can't tell you how long I stared at the meaning of this calligraphy
> before getting a clue from you.
>
> http://i2.tinypic.com/qzot4y.jpg

That's just one of many forms of the character for "cha" ?? You
wouldn't believe how many variant forms there are. It all comes down to
styles of calligraphy.

And besides that, there are a few archaic variant forms of writing the
tea character itself - and they are all correct. Except, they're not
used anymore.

Quite a few characters in Chinese have variant forms of writing. For
example, the word for "cup" ?? It uses the wood radical ?? But
then, that should indicate the cup is probably made out of wood. Then,
in another variant form, you could replace the wood radical with the
dish radical ? on the bottom of the character.

As another example, the character for "bowl" ?? Normally it uses
the stone radical ?? But, it can also be written with the earth
radical ? instead of the stone radical. Or, you could use the wood
radical ?? Or, you chould use the dish radical ? on the bottom.
So that all gives it some kind of meaning - whether it's a bowl made
from stone, earth, wood, etc. Anyway, most people today just write it
as ??

That all adds to the complexity and beauty of written Chinese, which is
not expressed in the spoken language.

One more question on calligraphy. I can't tie the calligraphy,if that
is what it is,to the Chinese characters on this Lancang puer.

http://i2.tinypic.com/r0t9bn.jpg

Notice the 'weed' calligraphy tea character in the zhong emblem which
is how I identify Lancang.

Thanks,
Jim

samarkand wrote:
> :")
>
> I can't agree more on the beauty and complexity of the characters!
....delete excellent comments by Danny and Niisonge...

Jim,

I take it that you mean the wormy characters under the chinese ones on the
first line?

That's in the Dai minority tribe language. Similar to Thai...

:")

Danny


"Space Cowboy" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> One more question on calligraphy. I can't tie the calligraphy,if that
> is what it is,to the Chinese characters on this Lancang puer.
>
> http://i2.tinypic.com/r0t9bn.jpg
>
> Notice the 'weed' calligraphy tea character in the zhong emblem which
> is how I identify Lancang.
>
> Thanks,
> Jim
>
> samarkand wrote:
>> :")
>>
>> I can't agree more on the beauty and complexity of the characters!
> ...delete excellent comments by Danny and Niisonge...
>

Sorry, forgot to add...

The first line is Chinese, written in "Li Shu" another form of calligraphy -
and my favourite...

Danny


"Space Cowboy" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> One more question on calligraphy. I can't tie the calligraphy,if that
> is what it is,to the Chinese characters on this Lancang puer.
>
> http://i2.tinypic.com/r0t9bn.jpg
>
> Notice the 'weed' calligraphy tea character in the zhong emblem which
> is how I identify Lancang.
>
> Thanks,
> Jim
>
> samarkand wrote:
>> :")
>>
>> I can't agree more on the beauty and complexity of the characters!
> ...delete excellent comments by Danny and Niisonge...
>

[niisonge]
As another example, the character for "bowl" ?? Normally it uses
the stone radical ?? But, it can also be written with the earth
radical ? instead of the stone radical. Or, you could use the wood
radical ?? Or, you chould use the dish radical ? on the bottom.
So that all gives it some kind of meaning - whether it's a bowl made
from stone, earth, wood, etc. Anyway, most people today just write it
as ??

That all adds to the complexity and beauty of written Chinese, which is
not expressed in the spoken language.

[Danny]
Agree, however, the 'pre-fixes' you mentioned are not radical, but archaic.

? in its early written form is not with ?, but with ?, indicating that it is
a metallic object with a wide mouth and narrow bottom, to put things in.

The 'pre-fixes' then changed to ?, ?, ?, ?, before finalising on the
character we know today.

danny

My apologies, I forgot I can't post in chinese characters here...

Danny

"samarkand" > wrote in message
...
> [niisonge]
> As another example, the character for "bowl" ?? Normally it uses
> the stone radical ?? But, it can also be written with the earth
> radical ? instead of the stone radical. Or, you could use the wood
> radical ?? Or, you chould use the dish radical ? on the bottom.
> So that all gives it some kind of meaning - whether it's a bowl made
> from stone, earth, wood, etc. Anyway, most people today just write it
> as ??
>
> That all adds to the complexity and beauty of written Chinese, which is
> not expressed in the spoken language.
>
> [Danny]
> Agree, however, the 'pre-fixes' you mentioned are not radical, but
> archaic.
>
> ? in its early written form is not with ?, but with ?, indicating that it
> is a metallic object with a wide mouth and narrow bottom, to put things
> in.
>
> The 'pre-fixes' then changed to ?, ?, ?, ?, before finalising on the
> character we know today.
>
> danny
>

Danny,

If you want send it to me in email and I'll repost. I now know the Dai
character for tea. I thought what I was looking at was Arabic or
Indian. Oooh that is a sexy mysterious wrapper.

Jim

samarkand wrote:
> My apologies, I forgot I can't post in chinese characters here...
>
> Danny

[Jim]
> If you want send it to me in email and I'll repost. I now know the Dai
> character for tea. I thought what I was looking at was Arabic or
> Indian. Oooh that is a sexy mysterious wrapper.
>
Thanks, I'll send it to you...

"samarkand" > writes:

> [niisonge]
> [...]
>
> That all adds to the complexity and beauty of written Chinese, which is
> not expressed in the spoken language.
>
> [Danny]
> Agree, however, the 'pre-fixes' you mentioned are not radical, but archaic.

I don't understand the distinction you're making here. Could you
explain, please?

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

>> [Danny]
>> Agree, however, the 'pre-fixes' you mentioned are not radical, but
>> archaic.
>
[Lew]
> I don't understand the distinction you're making here. Could you
> explain, please?
>
Ahh I see, radical as in "word root"? I took it as "change"...archaic as in
the characters with these "pre-fixes" or radicals are no longer in use.

Danny

I include Danny's Chinese characters which replaces ? in the last part
of this post which he sent to me by email:

The 'pre-fixes' are not radical, but archaic...

Íë in its early written form is not with ʯ, but with ½ð, indicating
that it is a metallic object with a wide mouth and a narrow bottom to
put things in.

The "pre-fixes" then changed to Ãó, ľ, Íß, ÍÁ, before finalising
on the character we know today.

samarkand wrote:
> My apologies, I forgot I can't post in chinese characters here...
>
> Danny
>
> "samarkand" > wrote in message
> ...
> > [niisonge]
> > As another example, the character for "bowl" ?? Normally it uses
> > the stone radical ?? But, it can also be written with the earth
> > radical ? instead of the stone radical. Or, you could use the wood
> > radical ?? Or, you chould use the dish radical ? on the bottom.
> > So that all gives it some kind of meaning - whether it's a bowl made
> > from stone, earth, wood, etc. Anyway, most people today just write it
> > as ??
> >
> > That all adds to the complexity and beauty of written Chinese, which is
> > not expressed in the spoken language.
> >
> > [Danny]
> > Agree, however, the 'pre-fixes' you mentioned are not radical, but
> > archaic.
> >
> > ? in its early written form is not with ?, but with ?, indicating that it
> > is a metallic object with a wide mouth and narrow bottom, to put things
> > in.
> >
> > The 'pre-fixes' then changed to ?, ?, ?, ?, before finalising on the
> > character we know today.
> >
> > danny

> Ahh I see, radical as in "word root"? I took it as "change"...archaic as in
> the characters with these "pre-fixes" or radicals are no longer in use.

Yes, I meant radical as in "word root" - the things you use to look up
a character in a Chinese dictionary - like
人ã€�女ã€�çš¿ã€�土ã€�石ã€�木ã€�金ã€�瓦ã€�ç« ¹ã€�etc. Radicals
like these generally indicate some meaning to the character written.


And I was just pointing out the character 碗 has variant forms that
could be written with radicals other than the stone 石 radical.
Whether they are archaic forms or not is another issue. Modern Chinese
is still written with a lot of variant form characters. I was just
using the character for cup and bowl as examples. And that's one reason
why written Chinese is so complex and interesting.

>I don't understand the distinction you're making here. Could you
>explain, please?

And then, I was just pointing all of this out, because it's not
expressed in the spoken language - since the meaning and pronunciation
are all the same. You have to understand the writing, and know how to
read to understand the differences. If I write "you" with the 女
radical, it conveys a whole different meaning than if I wrote it with
the 人 radical. Though they are both spoken the same, the written
meaning is quite different. Simply because 女 means "woman". So if I
wrote "you" ä½* with the 女 radical, it should refer to females.
Whereas, if I wrote you ä½* with the 人 radical, it could refer to
males or females. But in writing, I generally use the 人 radical form
of ä½* to refer only to the male gender, and the 女 radical form of
ä½* to refer to female gender.

And then, in modern Chinese, there is the distinction between
Mainland/Singapore written Chinese, which is simplified Chinese
简体，and traditional Chinese �体, which is used in Hong Kong,
Taiwan, and by most of the Chinese diaspora (like in North America -
which includes me). But then, I have a lot of net friends in China, so
I usually type characters using simplified Chinese. But in hand
writing, always use traditonal Chinese.

So in traditional Chinese, there are variant forms of "you" ä½* using
the 女 radical or the 人 radical. While in simplified Chinese, there
is only the 人 radical version. So if I go to mainland China, and
write ä½* with the 女 radical, people think I'm crazy. They say that
character doesn't exist.

Anyway, the point I'm making is that written Chinese language is
amazingly rich, complex, and varied no matter where you are on earth.

[niisonge]
So in traditional Chinese, there are variant forms of "you" ? using
the ? radical or the ? radical. While in simplified Chinese, there
is only the ? radical version. So if I go to mainland China, and
write ? with the ? radical, people think I'm crazy. They say that
character doesn't exist.


Nah, they won't think you crazy. I know what you mean, - while the 'ren'
radical 'ni' is inter-used for both sexes, the feminine form of 'ni' in the
above is still used and understood in mainland China. I was watching a
mainland series this afternoon and its title still uses the feminine form...

> Nah, they won't think you crazy. I know what you mean, - while the 'ren'
> radical 'ni' is inter-used for both sexes, the feminine form of 'ni' in the
> above is still used and understood in mainland China. I was watching a
> mainland series this afternoon and its title still uses the feminine form...

Yeah, but last time I was in China, I got a funny look from my friends.
I get even funnier looks when I write in Cantonese, haha.

LOL! Write Cantonese? In where? I think the cantonese characters are
recognized only in Hongkong, some areas in Guangzhou, and Malaysia!

Were you in Beijing or up north? I know the beijingers do not usually use
the feminine form of 'ni' these days...


"niisonge" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>> Nah, they won't think you crazy. I know what you mean, - while the 'ren'
>> radical 'ni' is inter-used for both sexes, the feminine form of 'ni' in
>> the
>> above is still used and understood in mainland China. I was watching a
>> mainland series this afternoon and its title still uses the feminine
>> form...
>
> Yeah, but last time I was in China, I got a funny look from my friends.
> I get even funnier looks when I write in Cantonese, haha.
>

Last time, I went to Beijing; and I had a heck of a time understanding
northern dialect. But after awhile, I caught on. I just wasn't used to
it. Once in a while, I spoke to people in Cantonese just for fun. Some
people work in Guangdong, then return home, so they can understand a
few words. But a lot of people just had a really puzzled look on their
faces.

For me living in Canada, Cantonese is the "normal" Chinese language. So
I always thought Chinese who don't understand Cantonese are very
strange. Sometimes, I almost wanted to say: "What's wrong with you
people? I'm speaking plain Chinese". Haha.

When I chat with net friends in Hong Kong, Canada, Guangdong, and
Guangxi, those that can understand Cantonese anyway, we usually type in
Cantonese - especially HK friends who can't speak putonghua - they
always type in Cantonese.

samarkand > wrote:

hi samarkand,
sorry for coming back so late, but I wish to thank you for answering
with such a detailed explanation. I knew it was not a "fresh" tea, but
it liked nontheless. And you confirmed what I had in mind about generic
packages.
Very much appreciated

Angela

> hi Dominic,
>
> The box packaging is generic. The company that produces this box has
> several of similar designs in different colour. These boxes are designed as
> gift-packs. Hoever, some tea companies who prefer to package their own teas
> but refuse to pay a design fee on the packaging will approach this company
> and have their teas packaged in the design as you see. The tea company can
> also customise the package to include the name of their own tea.
>
> In this case, Angela's last post with the pics showed that the company *may
> be* called 'Ling Yan'. The name of the tea is in the 4th pic of the
> previous post, called "Ling Yan Ming Qian Cha" - The pre-Ming (early spring,
> around early March) tea from Ling Yan.
>
> Unfortunately, both the name of the tea and the area of production are
> ambiguously generic. However, since it says "Ming Qian", early srping tea,
> this rules out very much the White Tea speculation. White tea is produced
> in the later months. It is a green tea using young flush with lots of down,
> similar to the Bi Luo Chun.
>
> The other 4 characters all over the box in pic 3 are "Han Mo Ming Xiang" -
> Han Mo means to pen a letter, here it indicates also the fragrance of the
> ink; Ming Xiang means fragrance of Tea.
>
> The lines of characters at the bottom of the gold box in the centre are
> excerpts from a poem by Admiral Zheng Ban Qiao, but it is misquoted in the
> large print...the lines read, in translation:
>
> A few sprigs of black inked Orchids
> On paper from Xuan De,
> Bitter Tea in a cup
> From the kilns of Cheng Hua.
>
> Kinda *Hakku* I guess, to evoke a tonal picture.
>
> The tea, is from Ling Yan. Ling Yan can be a company, or a place. As a
> place, there are at least three with the same names in China, but my guess
> is the one in Jinan city in Shangdong province. This is the place where the
> monks first advocated drinking green tea to stay alert through long prayers.
> This area still produces green tea that looks similar.
>
> I think that's about all.
>
> Danny


--