On Sun, 21 Jan 2007 21:48:27 -0800, Mydnight wrote:

> Recently, there has been an outcry in the media about tea factories adding
> various chemicals to nearly every type of food that one can consume here
> in China. It's especially hit headlines over in HK, where they actually
> take this very seriously. Vegetables, meats, fish, fruit, and various
> teas have been called into question about whether it causes more harm than
> good to consume.
>
> The most notable accounts of tea being tampered with comes from the Fujian
> province; the home of various WuYi Mountain teas and the famous Tie Guan
> Yin. Here in Dongguan, the locals have basically turned their backs on
> TieGuanYin completely and have switched to Pu'er. Why? As quoted to me
> by a merchant friend of mine, [translated] "Most TGY that people drink
> [here] has very little REAL TGY flavor because of how much chemicals are
> added to make it more valuable." Pu'er tea has also been in the news in
> HK because of how dirty the process is to produce the actual tea. The
> mostly were talking about Shu Pu which is fine by me because I only drink
> big-leaf Sheng now from a private source.
>
> Last night after a lengthy, 3 hour session of tea drinking, I brought out
> some decent grade Nong Xiang High Mountain (NXHM) for my Taiwanese friend
> to try. He is over 50, and most older people from Taiwan prefer the
> strong, earthy sweetness and excellent "hui gan" (residual, recurring
> flavor) that the heavily roasted tea can produce. After I told him what
> we were going to drink, he turned the tea down flat citing that fully
> roasted teas are bad for your health because they use charcoal in the
> roasting process. He then also said that nearly ALL Nong Xiang teas were
> subjected to charcoal roasting; he especially is afraid to drink any Dan
> Cong teas from Guangdong.
>
> This whole thing has saddened me quite a bit. Perhaps these years in
> China drinking good teas has been more harmful to my health then
> beneficial. The usual criticism against my argument is "oh, well I know
> where I get MY teas from; it just must be your low quality teas that are
> bad" but to be honest, all of my tea comes from before market sources and
> close friends in the industry. I drink teas that most Chinese don't even
> get to see in their lifetimes.
>
> The only teas that are without tampering, I have found, are the green teas
> that you can find in the Chinese countryside or from factories that are
> not famous. Even the farmers in Hangzhou have been known to paint their
> teas if the colors are not up to snuff.
>
> Anyway, has anyone heard things like this before? I guess it's not that
> easy to get this information unless you have at least a basic level of
> Chinese/Cantonese because I've only seen this in Chinese-medium sources.
> They wouldn't want this information to escape to other countries, I
> suppose.

The only thing that I have heard (up until now, of course), is the
flouride levels in tea. This is because of pollution, apparently, and the
tea plant is very good at soaking up minerals, so the flouride accumulates
in the tea plant. This would not affects buds, and fresh growth as much as
the stems or twigs (as in kukicha twig tea), and the large leaves that are
not fresh spring growth (large leaf puerh). There was one study that found
that puerh didn't have anywhere near as much flouride as did what the
study called "brick tea", which is apparently a much lower-grade tea that
contained many stems and twigs and things like that. Often used in Tibet
to make yak butter tea.

There's really no way to know other than to go in and do the measurements
yourself, probably. Do tea farms at higher altitudes have less pollution?
Good question. Are the flouride levels increasing year by year as the
pollution situation gets worse? That was the feeling I got. Does the water
which is being used to irrigate the tea bushes affect the flouride levels?
Probably. I have seen advertisements that many remote area tea farms/trees
are not irrigated, but simply rely on rain water. Would these types of
teas be safer? It would seem to me that they might be. I definitely try to
purchase pu-erhs made from a lower grade leaf (smaller leaves) - yes, they
don't age as well, but I would seriously doubt something like a 7542
(grade 4) would have much flouride. Getting up to grade 7, 8, 9, or off
the scale, as some puerhs are, I might tend to avoid those. Until I hear
otherwise, that is. I fully realize I could be wrong and might simply be
being paranoid.

So - misty mountain top remote area fresh growth buds - if you want to be
really safe from flouride problems, I guess. Avoid teas made from larger
old-growth leaves, I guess. Or maybe not? There's just really no way to
know unless you do the testing yourself. And, unlike caffeine, flouride
continues to be released from the tea leaves for up to 45 minutes of
soaking or more (way after the flavor is gone). So you can't rinse it out.
It's really quite a shame, actually. Depending on how much you drink, it
can be really bad for you.

On another note, I have ordered rather high-quality old-style
charcoal-roasted wuyi oolongs, and I do notice that I get a sort of
unpleasant feeling in my stomach from them. Maybe it's just me, but I do
have a fairly hard time with wuyi oolongs. They definitely throw me off
balance in an unpleasant way. Unfortunate, really. Green tea from Wuyi,
OTOH, I find to be very, very pleasant and wonderful, and tend to drink a
fair amount of it. So I don't doubt that there is something about the
charcoal. It's also supposed to be environmentally unfriendly. But I do
have a lot of respect for Wuyi Oolongs, so I keep trying.

This does raise some questions for me - are they being adulterated? It
wouldn't surprise me, I suppose. I think perhaps we just need to approach
it with an open mind, and listen to our bodies, listen to what they tell
us. I've never had an adverse reaction to pu-erh, but I definitely feel an
unpleasant sensation in my stomach sometimes after drinking the Wuyi
oolongs (not the Wuyi greens). So, that bums me out a little bit, but
OTOH, there are so many wonderful teas out there, there isn't really
anything to be depressed about.

Cheers to all, and may be learn more about these types of things with an
open mind!

> This does raise some questions for me - are they being adulterated? It
> wouldn't surprise me, I suppose. I think perhaps we just need to approach
> it with an open mind, and listen to our bodies, listen to what they tell
> us. I've never had an adverse reaction to pu-erh, but I definitely feel an
> unpleasant sensation in my stomach sometimes after drinking the Wuyi
> oolongs (not the Wuyi greens). So, that bums me out a little bit, but
> OTOH, there are so many wonderful teas out there, there isn't really
> anything to be depressed about.

It's just spooky to think that stuff that is supposed to be "good for
us" is actually causing us harm. These days, I ONLY drink green teas
that I know for a fact come from a place with little pollution, some
high quality new pu'er that i liked so much (and everyone thought it
was awesome quality) that I bought 56 cakes of it, and some Taiwan
Wulong that is bought from some of my close, personal friends of mine
in the tea business. I am just more than a little bothered about all
of this.

There was actually a period of time that I had a sharp pain in my
stomach after eating. I could not figure out what could possibly be
the cause; no previous medical history, was eating clean food at the
time, and I was in pretty good shape. I then realized that the
heavenly tasting tea that I had been drinking could have possibly been
the problem. I stopped drinking tea for a week, and my pain cleared
up. That's enough proof for me.

You know, when I started this thread, I thought I was going to get a
lot of negative backlash from the folks that didn't want to think that
it could be true. I am a little happy to hear that you see what I'm
saying and put stock in it. But, I am unhappy that others have had
the displeasure to see this information.

Ironically, there was more information on this exact type of thing
that was on sohu.com/sina.com/21cn.com; China's big online News
portals. To be brief, they did a study in the 3rd quarter of 2006
about some teashops around Guangzhou; some in Fangcun/Panyu/Liwang/
etc. It doesn't really matter where the sample was taken because
everyone in GZ will have to get their teas from Fangcun tea market or
have some contact with their teas. For everyone in Southern China,
there is NO CHOICE. Unless you know exactly where your tea comes
from, you will be drinking this tea.

Of the teas studied, they found traces of lead in some Longjing and
some chemical in the TieGuanYin called Methamidophos which is a
chemical found in some pretty serious pesticides. The levels of these
chemicals in the teas are simply too high for human exposure,
supposedly. If you are also interested, it also talks about some fake
Chinese rice wines that can cause blindness. Sorry, the site is in
Chinese.

http://news.sohu.com/20070125/n247821782.shtml

So, in short. I don't drink teas unless they come from a private
channel so that the tea can be traced back to where it was grown and
produced. I do not buy from wholesale markets anymore, and will only
do business with people that can assure me that their tea is clean by
scientific proof.

Just a note to all (and you all are so computer savy - you probably
are aware of this already) : if you download the google toolbar, there
is an "translate" option. This will translate the entire page (it
seems to do quite a good job) or word by word. I use it often and it
has really increased by uderstanding of language and slang venacular.
Shen

On Jan 27, 9:37 am, "Mydnight" > wrote:
> > This does raise some questions for me - are they being adulterated? It
> > wouldn't surprise me, I suppose. I think perhaps we just need to approach
> > it with an open mind, and listen to our bodies, listen to what they tell
> > us. I've never had an adverse reaction to pu-erh, but I definitely feel an
> > unpleasant sensation in my stomach sometimes after drinking the Wuyi
> > oolongs (not the Wuyi greens). So, that bums me out a little bit, but
> > OTOH, there are so many wonderful teas out there, there isn't really
> > anything to be depressed about.It's just spooky to think that stuff that is supposed to be "good for
> us" is actually causing us harm. These days, I ONLY drink green teas
> that I know for a fact come from a place with little pollution, some
> high quality new pu'er that i liked so much (and everyone thought it
> was awesome quality) that I bought 56 cakes of it, and some Taiwan
> Wulong that is bought from some of my close, personal friends of mine
> in the tea business. I am just more than a little bothered about all
> of this.
>
> There was actually a period of time that I had a sharp pain in my
> stomach after eating. I could not figure out what could possibly be
> the cause; no previous medical history, was eating clean food at the
> time, and I was in pretty good shape. I then realized that the
> heavenly tasting tea that I had been drinking could have possibly been
> the problem. I stopped drinking tea for a week, and my pain cleared
> up. That's enough proof for me.
>
> You know, when I started this thread, I thought I was going to get a
> lot of negative backlash from the folks that didn't want to think that
> it could be true. I am a little happy to hear that you see what I'm
> saying and put stock in it. But, I am unhappy that others have had
> the displeasure to see this information.
>
> Ironically, there was more information on this exact type of thing
> that was on sohu.com/sina.com/21cn.com; China's big online News
> portals. To be brief, they did a study in the 3rd quarter of 2006
> about some teashops around Guangzhou; some in Fangcun/Panyu/Liwang/
> etc. It doesn't really matter where the sample was taken because
> everyone in GZ will have to get their teas from Fangcun tea market or
> have some contact with their teas. For everyone in Southern China,
> there is NO CHOICE. Unless you know exactly where your tea comes
> from, you will be drinking this tea.
>
> Of the teas studied, they found traces of lead in some Longjing and
> some chemical in the TieGuanYin called Methamidophos which is a
> chemical found in some pretty serious pesticides. The levels of these
> chemicals in the teas are simply too high for human exposure,
> supposedly. If you are also interested, it also talks about some fake
> Chinese rice wines that can cause blindness. Sorry, the site is in
> Chinese.
>
> http://news.sohu.com/20070125/n247821782.shtml
>
> So, in short. I don't drink teas unless they come from a private
> channel so that the tea can be traced back to where it was grown and
> produced. I do not buy from wholesale markets anymore, and will only
> do business with people that can assure me that their tea is clean by
> scientific proof.

"Shen" > writes:

> Just a note to all (and you all are so computer savy - you probably
> are aware of this already) : if you download the google toolbar, there
> is an "translate" option. This will translate the entire page (it
> seems to do quite a good job) or word by word. I use it often and it
> has really increased by uderstanding of language and slang venacular.

I haven't installed the Google toolbar, but I have used the Google
Chinese-English translation site (http://translate.google.com), and
I'm mostly frustrated by its opaque English and its disregard for
context in selecting which of a character's possible meanings to use.
Does the toolbar actually use a different translator?

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html
recent addition: beidixiang

Gosh, I really don't know.
I did notice that some pages are translated better than others and
that occasionally, the translations are "slited", awkward. It's been
handy, though.
I use "babelcarp" whenever I can. But, this has worked for me when
perusing Chinese tea shop sites.
Shen
Lewis Perin wrote:
> "Shen" > writes:
>
> > Just a note to all (and you all are so computer savy - you probably
> > are aware of this already) : if you download the google toolbar, there
> > is an "translate" option. This will translate the entire page (it
> > seems to do quite a good job) or word by word. I use it often and it
> > has really increased by uderstanding of language and slang venacular.
>
> I haven't installed the Google toolbar, but I have used the Google
> Chinese-English translation site (http://translate.google.com), and
> I'm mostly frustrated by its opaque English and its disregard for
> context in selecting which of a character's possible meanings to use.
> Does the toolbar actually use a different translator?
>
> /Lew
> ---
> Lew Perin /
> http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html
> recent addition: beidixiang

"Shen" > writes:

> Lewis Perin wrote:
>
> > [...]
> > I haven't installed the Google toolbar, but I have used the Google
> > Chinese-English translation site (http://translate.google.com), and
> > I'm mostly frustrated by its opaque English and its disregard for
> > context in selecting which of a character's possible meanings to use.
> > Does the toolbar actually use a different translator?
>
> Gosh, I really don't know.
> I did notice that some pages are translated better than others and
> that occasionally, the translations are "slited", awkward. It's been
> handy, though.

Let me pose the question in a different way. Please go to the
translator in the Google toolbar and ask it to translate this page:

http://news.sohu.com/20070125/n247821782.shtml

What URL do you see then?

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

Lew,

I've always wondered why Google couldn't do better. I'm starting to
learn some Chinese grammar and I can see the problem with
constructions like aspect markers, measure words and topics. I
wished Google would give a literal pinyin translation which makes it
easier to see the grammar. I've picked up some college Chinese
grammar books but assumes you know the basics which I don't.
Fortunately I found a couple of good books at the Library no longer in
print which explain the basics. As one preface explained which I
paraphrase People think Chinese grammar is easy to learn because there
is no grammar like the West but the Chinese assume more by saying less
which is really the grammatical learning curve in Chinese.

Jim

On Jan 28, 3:58 pm, Lewis Perin > wrote:
> "Shen" > writes:
> > Just a note to all (and you all are so computer savy - you probably
> > are aware of this already) : if you download the google toolbar, there
> > is an "translate" option. This will translate the entire page (it
> > seems to do quite a good job) or word by word. I use it often and it
> > has really increased by uderstanding of language and slang venacular.I haven't installed the Google toolbar, but I have used the Google
> Chinese-English translation site (http://translate.google.com), and
> I'm mostly frustrated by its opaque English and its disregard for
> context in selecting which of a character's possible meanings to use.
> Does the toolbar actually use a different translator?
>
> /Lew
> ---
> Lew Perin /
> recent addition: beidixiang

"Space Cowboy" > writes:

> Lew,
>
> I've always wondered why Google couldn't do better. I'm starting to
> learn some Chinese grammar and I can see the problem with
> constructions like aspect markers, measure words and topics. I
> wished Google would give a literal pinyin translation which makes it
> easier to see the grammar.

I understand what you're saying: that would be useful for people like
us. I admit that I actually have a tool like that, though I'm not
releasing it publicly because it's kind of ragged and also because I
pay for the bandwidth. But I think Google rightly is more interested
in the far more numerous people who want a real translator.

> I've picked up some college Chinese grammar books but assumes you
> know the basics which I don't. Fortunately I found a couple of good
> books at the Library no longer in print which explain the basics.
> As one preface explained which I paraphrase People think Chinese
> grammar is easy to learn because there is no grammar like the West
> but the Chinese assume more by saying less which is really the
> grammatical learning curve in Chinese.

The text I'm using, which is in print, is _Integrated Chinese_,
principal authors Yao and Liu. I'm happy with it, but I have nothing
to compare it with.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

Interesting...I tried a bagged ooling from a local asian store and it made
my stomache really sick. I immediately threw the whole box out because I
knew something was up with it. It was very smokey tasting...in a way that I
really didn't like. I had terrible paid afterwards.

Pete


"Puerh Fan" > wrote in message
...
> On Sun, 21 Jan 2007 21:48:27 -0800, Mydnight wrote:
>
>> Recently, there has been an outcry in the media about tea factories
>> adding
>> various chemicals to nearly every type of food that one can consume here
>> in China. It's especially hit headlines over in HK, where they actually
>> take this very seriously. Vegetables, meats, fish, fruit, and various
>> teas have been called into question about whether it causes more harm
>> than
>> good to consume.
>>
>> The most notable accounts of tea being tampered with comes from the
>> Fujian
>> province; the home of various WuYi Mountain teas and the famous Tie Guan
>> Yin. Here in Dongguan, the locals have basically turned their backs on
>> TieGuanYin completely and have switched to Pu'er. Why? As quoted to me
>> by a merchant friend of mine, [translated] "Most TGY that people drink
>> [here] has very little REAL TGY flavor because of how much chemicals are
>> added to make it more valuable." Pu'er tea has also been in the news in
>> HK because of how dirty the process is to produce the actual tea. The
>> mostly were talking about Shu Pu which is fine by me because I only drink
>> big-leaf Sheng now from a private source.
>>
>> Last night after a lengthy, 3 hour session of tea drinking, I brought out
>> some decent grade Nong Xiang High Mountain (NXHM) for my Taiwanese friend
>> to try. He is over 50, and most older people from Taiwan prefer the
>> strong, earthy sweetness and excellent "hui gan" (residual, recurring
>> flavor) that the heavily roasted tea can produce. After I told him what
>> we were going to drink, he turned the tea down flat citing that fully
>> roasted teas are bad for your health because they use charcoal in the
>> roasting process. He then also said that nearly ALL Nong Xiang teas were
>> subjected to charcoal roasting; he especially is afraid to drink any Dan
>> Cong teas from Guangdong.
>>
>> This whole thing has saddened me quite a bit. Perhaps these years in
>> China drinking good teas has been more harmful to my health then
>> beneficial. The usual criticism against my argument is "oh, well I know
>> where I get MY teas from; it just must be your low quality teas that are
>> bad" but to be honest, all of my tea comes from before market sources and
>> close friends in the industry. I drink teas that most Chinese don't even
>> get to see in their lifetimes.
>>
>> The only teas that are without tampering, I have found, are the green
>> teas
>> that you can find in the Chinese countryside or from factories that are
>> not famous. Even the farmers in Hangzhou have been known to paint their
>> teas if the colors are not up to snuff.
>>
>> Anyway, has anyone heard things like this before? I guess it's not that
>> easy to get this information unless you have at least a basic level of
>> Chinese/Cantonese because I've only seen this in Chinese-medium sources.
>> They wouldn't want this information to escape to other countries, I
>> suppose.
>
> The only thing that I have heard (up until now, of course), is the
> flouride levels in tea. This is because of pollution, apparently, and the
> tea plant is very good at soaking up minerals, so the flouride accumulates
> in the tea plant. This would not affects buds, and fresh growth as much as
> the stems or twigs (as in kukicha twig tea), and the large leaves that are
> not fresh spring growth (large leaf puerh). There was one study that found
> that puerh didn't have anywhere near as much flouride as did what the
> study called "brick tea", which is apparently a much lower-grade tea that
> contained many stems and twigs and things like that. Often used in Tibet
> to make yak butter tea.
>
> There's really no way to know other than to go in and do the measurements
> yourself, probably. Do tea farms at higher altitudes have less pollution?
> Good question. Are the flouride levels increasing year by year as the
> pollution situation gets worse? That was the feeling I got. Does the water
> which is being used to irrigate the tea bushes affect the flouride levels?
> Probably. I have seen advertisements that many remote area tea farms/trees
> are not irrigated, but simply rely on rain water. Would these types of
> teas be safer? It would seem to me that they might be. I definitely try to
> purchase pu-erhs made from a lower grade leaf (smaller leaves) - yes, they
> don't age as well, but I would seriously doubt something like a 7542
> (grade 4) would have much flouride. Getting up to grade 7, 8, 9, or off
> the scale, as some puerhs are, I might tend to avoid those. Until I hear
> otherwise, that is. I fully realize I could be wrong and might simply be
> being paranoid.
>
> So - misty mountain top remote area fresh growth buds - if you want to be
> really safe from flouride problems, I guess. Avoid teas made from larger
> old-growth leaves, I guess. Or maybe not? There's just really no way to
> know unless you do the testing yourself. And, unlike caffeine, flouride
> continues to be released from the tea leaves for up to 45 minutes of
> soaking or more (way after the flavor is gone). So you can't rinse it out.
> It's really quite a shame, actually. Depending on how much you drink, it
> can be really bad for you.
>
> On another note, I have ordered rather high-quality old-style
> charcoal-roasted wuyi oolongs, and I do notice that I get a sort of
> unpleasant feeling in my stomach from them. Maybe it's just me, but I do
> have a fairly hard time with wuyi oolongs. They definitely throw me off
> balance in an unpleasant way. Unfortunate, really. Green tea from Wuyi,
> OTOH, I find to be very, very pleasant and wonderful, and tend to drink a
> fair amount of it. So I don't doubt that there is something about the
> charcoal. It's also supposed to be environmentally unfriendly. But I do
> have a lot of respect for Wuyi Oolongs, so I keep trying.
>
> This does raise some questions for me - are they being adulterated? It
> wouldn't surprise me, I suppose. I think perhaps we just need to approach
> it with an open mind, and listen to our bodies, listen to what they tell
> us. I've never had an adverse reaction to pu-erh, but I definitely feel an
> unpleasant sensation in my stomach sometimes after drinking the Wuyi
> oolongs (not the Wuyi greens). So, that bums me out a little bit, but
> OTOH, there are so many wonderful teas out there, there isn't really
> anything to be depressed about.
>
> Cheers to all, and may be learn more about these types of things with an
> open mind!