Haichao Tea Blocks
 

Found a very interesting thing at a local Korean market.... I thought I was
buying some very dense teabags, sold by the "Yunnan Haichao Teablocks Co.
Ltd" but when I got them home I found that they were actually tiny little
compressed tea blocks, perhaps 2 cm on a side and with a depression on the
top to make them come apart better.

This stuff turns out to be a respectable jasmine tea, nothing amazing but
a slightly higher grade than the Fujian yellow box type. But the packaging
in small compressed blocks is actually very convenient for travelling
(which in fact is why I was looking for tea bags at the time).

Does anyone know these guys, and do they make any higher grade teas?
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

(Scott Dorsey) writes:

> Found a very interesting thing at a local Korean market.... I thought I was
> buying some very dense teabags, sold by the "Yunnan Haichao Teablocks Co.
> Ltd" but when I got them home I found that they were actually tiny little
> compressed tea blocks, perhaps 2 cm on a side and with a depression on the
> top to make them come apart better.
>
> This stuff turns out to be a respectable jasmine tea, nothing amazing but
> a slightly higher grade than the Fujian yellow box type. But the packaging
> in small compressed blocks is actually very convenient for travelling
> (which in fact is why I was looking for tea bags at the time).
>
> Does anyone know these guys, and do they make any higher grade teas?

This appears to be their website:

http://ynhccom.ec51.com/

It mentions five varieties, but not different grades.

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

> > Does anyone know these guys, and do they make any higher grade teas?
>
Saw them in an Int'l Tea exhibition last year. They offer 5 varieties:
green, black, jasmine, pu erh, and mi xiang (sticky rice fragrance tea)

I've tasted the black, green, pu erh and jasmine and they were all
nice. They don't make any higher grades. Each piece approx 3 grams,
which is a bit smaller than an ordinary mini tuo cha. The pieces are
shaped like a flat square rather than a nest. Each piece is separately
seal-wrapped in an aluminum wrapping (kind of like a...condom).

To sum it up, it's a cool gimik and fairly good tea.