AK > wrote in message thlink.net>...
> I went to brooklyn Ten Ren yesterday and bought some white tea and an
> oolong (that tastes more like gunpowder green). The nice lady gave me a
> scan of a ny times story about tea. It said there are 3000 types of tea.
> Is that true? Are most of them perceptibly different? (more so than
> different harvest of the same type)?
>
> -AK

definitely more than 3000!!
you can take a look at lu yu's cha jing, often known as the tea
doctrine written abt eight hundred year ago. countless tea types were
already documented by then.

there are probably many teas nobody've heard of or tasted, cuz most of
these products dont really travel far.
anji bai pian? (anji white leaves)
xianlong xiang min? (xianlong fragrance)
ma liu mi? (big mtn bitter tea)
bu zhi chun? (doesnt know spring )
bu jian tian? (doesnt see sky)
ban tian yao? (half the horizon)
qian li xiang? (thousand miles fragrance)
wuyi rou gui? (wuyi rock tea)
shui jin gui? (water turtle)
lu xue ya (green snow buds)
xue li oolong
and the list goes on. i m just offhandedly spouting names.
if you look at black tea, difffernt plantations produce differnt teas
too. plantations in malaysia, vietnam, china, india, etc all
different!