2025-02-07 I bought some tea

I buy tea about once a year. I also buy a lot of coffee but I have never compared the two. Probably a mistake. At one point I weighed the coffee beans for my Mokka pot and got 17g. I make two of these per day. That’s about 12.5kg per year and probably costs CHF 250.- per year, plus coffee in coffee houses and restaurants.

Anyway, taking pictures of the labels with my phone, relying on the optical character recognition so I can copy and paste this into @babelcarp@social.tchncs.de’s Babel Carp, “a Chinese Tea Lexicon”, and reading the entriss is how I also spend extra time with the tea.

Babel Carp

• Ye Lai Xiang (50g / CHF 41.50), 凤凰单丛, Phoenix Single Bush, descended from Shuixian trees growing in Fenghuanshan, i.e., the Phoenix Mountains in Chao An, called 夜来香 or Nocturnal Fragrance, maybe due to roasting over lychee wood (although last time I bought it wasn’t nearly as strong as I remembered I still want back that lychee fragrance)
• Ya Shi Xiang Dong Pian (50g / CHF 55.00), another 凤凰单丛, this one being 鸭屎香冬片 or “Smells Like Duck Shit” – this is confusing! – from Taiwan
• Gang Kou Cha Meer Oolong (100g / CHF 55.00), 港口茶, harbour tea from Pingtung in Taiwan
• Jinggu 2016 ( 357g / CHF 180.00), 普洱生饼古树茶, Pu Er Shen Bing Gu Shu Cha, i.e., raw Pu Er from old trees in 景谷, Jinggu; this one is the cheapest I could get, being neither from the east nor west of the Mekong river from from further north; they had cakes from 2015 up to 2024, all at the same price, and I didn’t know which ones to pick so I picked an older one – was this a good choice?
• Jin Jiang Hui Ming (50g / CHF 40.00), 金奖惠明, green tea grown by the She Zu; it got a gold medal in 1915! 😄 Huiming is the name of a local temple
• Tama Ryokucha Hinpyoukai (50g / CHF 35.00), kept under shade for three weeks, giving it a gyokuro sencha touch, From Ureshino, Saga. This is the Tsuyuhikari plant variety.
• Gen Mai Bancha (125g / CHF 17.50)
• Hojicha (70g / CHF 13.50)
• Shincha Yame (100g / CHF 40.00)
• Sencha Hoshino (50g / CHF 42.50)

凤凰单丛

鸭屎香冬片

港口茶

普洱生饼古树茶

金奖惠明

Some everyday tea like Genmaicha and Hojicha; some Sencha; some green tea from China, and a Pu Er cake. I am an absolutely clueless buyer of tea and essentially I just know that my price range goes up to around CHF 60.-/50g.

Nevertheless, in my hubris I wrote preparing Chinese tea for beginners. In a way, I feel like you can’t do this journey all in one go, so I wrote what I thought was important to me when I got started and I’m hoping to read more from people further along.

preparing Chinese tea for beginners

Let me know if you have books or articles to recommend.

​#Tea

• *2025-02-10**. The Tama Ryokucha Hinpyoukai is intense! 😍

2025-02-07-tea-1.jpg

• *2025-02-13**. The Jin Jiang Hui Ming is very nice. Floral umami. It looks surprisingly light.

2025-02-07-tea-2.jpg