Blog Sale - green tea samples, and others

Similar to the one last year -

The teas for this blog sale are not sold at lifeinteacup.com (most of them are not sold else where either). Some of them I've obtained small amounts for personal tasting. With all of them piling up, the small amount of each tea is probably still too much for me to drink myself :-p

Some of the green teas are from the same group purchase mentioned in the blog sale of last year.

All prices are lower than market prices and not correlated with our web store prices. 

If interested, please contact me at gingkoheight @ g m ail . com before June 15, 2012. 

Shipping is $4 flat for US and Canada, $8 flat for Europe. 


Warning!! Most teas included in this blog sale are for tasting purposes only, and I don't have large supplies of them. If you fall in love with any of them, it's up to yourself to find more :-p Sometimes it's not hard to find them, and sometimes it could be quite a challenge.


1. Anhui Green Tea Sample Set. $7. Sold

There are 3 sets available. The sample set includes 4 teas, 6g of each, totally 24g. 

A. Huo Shan Huang Ya - a historical yellow tea made into green tea. Similar to this one. 


B. Zen Patriarch Tea - similar to this one.

C. Mountain West Green Orchid - a tea that shares similarity with Huang Shan Mao Feng and White Plum Flower Peak.

D. Yong Xi Green Pearl - a later harvest from the same tea bushes for Yong Xi Huo Qing

There are a few free samples coming with this sample set, including White Plum Flower Peak (4g), Yong Xi Huo Qing (4g, similar to this one, to compare with Yong Xi Green Pearl), Tong Cheng Small Orchid (4g, similar to this one) and Mother's Tea (6g, as described here, to compare with Zen Patriarch Tea).


2. Hubei Green Tea Sample Set. $4. Sold
There are 3 sets available. Each sample set has 6g of each of the three teas described here. Totally 18g.


3. Zhejiang Green Tea Sample Set. $8. Sold

There are 3 sets available. Each sample set has 3 teas, 6g each, totally 18g.

A. Jing Shan Tea - this is a grade lower than the Jing Shan Tea in last year's blog sale. But I've found it of more prominent flavor. Generally I feel the price of Jing Shan Tea is too steep compared with many other options. So probably I won't get it in large scale in near future. But I like this tea and it's nice to taste it from time to time.

This is 2012 Jing Shan Tea.

The tea won't get bitter at this level of leaf/water ratio. But still I would recommend lower leaf/water ratio. I just lost my mind and throw in to many leaves :-p

B. Bodhi Silver Tips - This is a newly developed variety. The processing is similar to the heavier pan-frying method used in Zhejiang for late season harvest green teas. But this tea uses early season harvest to combine the freshness from the tea and aroma induced by the pan-frying method.


C. White Da Fo Long Jing - This is a green tea from Xinchang, the hometown of Da Fo Long Jing. The tea cultivar is from Anji, hometown of An Ji Bai Cha. The tea is processed with Long Jing method. The flavor is closer to An Ji Bai Cha than Long Jing. I will write more later about a comparison of Anji Bai Cha and Anji White Long Jing. For a long time, I wasn't excited about the idea of using Long Jing method to process Anji white tea. But this year, I sort of fell in love with white Long Jing, and consider getting a lot of it next year. So I would love to hear from more people about their thoughts of white Long Jing.

There are two free samples coming with this sample set, including An Ji Bai Cha (4g, to compare with white Long Jing) and Meng Shan Cloud (4g). Meng Shan Cloud is actually from Sichuan and can serve as a "fuzzy" tea to compare with Bodhi Silver Tips.

These are photos taken on the Anji White Long Jing I got. It's from our Anji Bai Cha producer, not from Xinchang. But the Xinchang white Long Jing looks similar.

(4-6. Assorted Long Jing. These are all from the same group purchase mentioned in the blog sale of last year. And yes that's the group purchase that was sold out immediately after opening, as described in the April madness blog post. I've got quite a few Long Jing already, so would let these go if some people would like them. Each will be accompanied by a Long Jing sample from Life in Teacup or my own collection.)


4. Da Fo Long Jing (the blue can on the left of the folowing photo), $10 Sold.
This is from a different source than the Da Fo Long Jing carried by lifeinteacup.com. It has received excellent evaluation from the organizer of the group purchase.

If someone would like to take the whole can, then I won't break the seal. I estimate there is 25-30g Long Jing in it (or a little more). I heard, but can't see, that there is also a wild chrysanthemum sample in it. I bought some wild chrysanthemum from this seller and love it (I will write a blog post about these tiny little flowers).

Seller's web store address (on taobao) is at the bottom of the can. But they've probably sold out this version for this year.

The whole can will be $10. But please let me know if two people would like to split it.

 
5. Xi Hu Long Jing 10g sample in a can (the middle one in the above photo), $3. Sold.

This is not a very high grade Long Jing. But it's from the tea field of Hangzhou Tea Museum. It was harvested around Guyu (around April 19). This date is considered very late in Long Jing harvest and near the end of the harvest season. Late harvest Long Jing does have more prominent flavors than the earlier harvest.


6. Shi Feng Long Jing 4g sample, $5 each. Sold.
2-3 samples are available.
Considering there is only 4g, $5 is quite expensive. So this tea is mainly for people who are crazy about Long Jing. The price of this tea in China is a lot more than this and more than I would like to pay. But it's a very good tea and can generally be seen as a "benchmark" of authentic Shi Feng Long Jing. It's made of Long Jing Group cultivar and was harvested on April 6. Due to the weather conditions this year, April 6 of this year is comparable to April 2-3 in most other years, and is the best time for Long Jing harvest. (Our Long Jing Village tea from April 7 is a perfect harvest too. This is not advertising, as the Long Jing Village tea is already sold out. But just can't help mentioning it haha!) Perfect old tea bushes, perfect timing and perfect processing. Besides, this tea is from the small piece of tea field reserved for supplying to Diao Yu Tai (the Chinese version of White House).

The free sample coming with this tea will be another Shi Feng Long Jing. I do think the Shi Feng Long Jing I got from Long Jing Village is as good as this one. But this tea, due to its "royal blood", went through very strict sorting and has perfect leaf shapes. The Long Jing Village tea didn't go through as strict sorting as this one, and may contain some larger leaves. I'm interested in learning what others think of them. My personal stock of Long Jing Village tea is already at its very bottom. But I will try to include 4g sample with the purchase of this sample. If there isn't enough Long Jing Village tea, a sample of Weng Jia Shan Long Jing will be given instead.


7. White tea sample set, $8. Sold.

There are 3 sample sets available. Each sample set includes 4g 2011 Silver Needle, 8g 2012 Silver Needle, 8g 2011 Bai Mu Dan and 8g 2009 Shou Mei. Total of 28g. The silver needles were recently discussed here.


8. Red tea sample set, $5.
Each sample set include 5g of each of 4 red teas. Totally 20g.
The 4 teas are:
A. Superior grade lapsang souchong - charcoal roasted but no typical smokey flavor.

B. Traditional style lapsang souchong - Smokey and slightly sour. The leaves were intentionally chopped, which was a common practice in the traditional processing. This tea might not be smokey enough for people who love typical smokey lapsang souchong, and could be too smokey for people who love non-smokey lapsang souchong. But for people who just want something in between, this tea is good. And this is probably the closest to traditional style that one can get.

C. Red tea Tie Guan Yin - a red tea made from Tie Guan Yin cultivar.

D. Keemun Mao Feng - it was described in this post, and is so far my favorite style of Keemun red tea.



Buyers please feel free to claim some free stuff here:

1. Some Taiwan High Mountain Oolong samples I've got here and there. I didn't taste them and I'm not sure of the quality. There might be some very nice ones and some mediocre ones. Good for people who haven't try much of Taiwan oolong yet but would like to try.

2. Some modern greener style Tie Guan Yin samples I've got here and there.

3. Ba Ba Cha - similar to this one. It's not anything precious, just if you would like to try it.

4. Saki bottles - I used to use them as vases. But the house is so stuffed and I know I can't keep everything :-p

5. Long Jing debris as described here. It's not anything precious and mainly for people who are curious about it. I don't have much and will put it in 15g samples. 

6. If you wonder whether there is good mini sheng, I can send you a couple of mini's that I think are good. I think there are plenty of good mini sheng's out there, but not everybody can find them or care to look for them ;-) And of course, "good" is all relative :-) This is for tasting purposes only. I don't have large supplies of them.