Dee Randall wrote:

> Among the other rarities offered are, a "three-headed" Japanese abalone,
> which cost $2,400 each and
> 50-year-old Pu'er tea from southern Yunnan province.
> **
> I keep Pu'er tea on hand -- it gets pretty mummified tasting. I wonder what
> 50-year old would taste like. I'll never know.

Food extravagance is cool. As to Pu-er tea, I don't know about
'mummified' but you can get it in pressed cakes as well as in leaves.
When we go out for dim sum, we normally get Pu-er tea with
chrysanthemum blossoms. (If you don't ask for your favorite tea, most
places around here will automatically give you jasmine.)

There are a lot of New Years traditional foods. We pick and choose,
except that we *always* have tangerines. -aem