On Sep 18, 5:01 am, juliantai > wrote:
> Hmm.. what a fascinating discussion you have here.
>
> To me, it really boils down to 2 things: how young is the tea shoots?
> Does your tea taste good?

I had a lot of Tie Guan Yin that tasted really good. Unfortunately,
most of those flavors are unnatural additives. The "tea shoot" thing
is mostly about green tea. What about Wulong?

> The best tea garden tends to use little pesticides. They just don't
> need it. These tend to be tea gardens situated at high altitude at
> sloping lands. The entire region tends to be prosperous tea growers
> (in China consisted of small tea gardens), situated away from
> factories and road traffics.

This is the newest marketing idea in the tea trade that I fell for
myself. "It's so high on the mountain, it doesn't need chemicals" or
"the farmers are so poor, that they cannot afford pesticides" or "the
most famous tea producing areas are more concerned about the tea being
clean". It's mostly balderdash.

In China quantity = money, not quality.

> Their teas tend to be wholesaled at very high prices and not so
> commonly available in the West. I came across a few tea gardens and
> they hardly bother about organic labelling - Chinese market doesn't
> care that much when it comes to these very sought-after teas.

These teas are not only "unavailable" in the West; a great percentage
of Chinese never even SEE these teas. They are carted away for the
royality and the uber-rich. The best green teas do come from the
small countryside places. Most famous teas, like Longjing, are
guaranteed to be dirty. See above about quality vs. quantity.

> Use of chemicals is not a viable long term strategy for the best tea
> gardens. If your tea tastes good, chances are it comes from a fertile
> tea garden with the right conditions that make overuse of chemicals
> unlikely.

Most Chinese can't see in the long term and it is part of their
culture. What is acquired today can be taken away tomorrow by the CCP
or anyone else with a little power.

If your tea tastes good, it is likely it has a bunch of flavoring
added. Nai Xiang? Guo (fruit) Xiang? Tell me which plant produces
such flavors naturally.