Hey there. Another shot in the dark to see if anyone has heard of
Jujube Fragrant pu-erh. I just got a brick in chinatown. Took me an
hour or so on zhongwen to figure out what the characters meant. It says
it's from "Xishuangbanna Menghai Yong Ming Tea Factory"

The picture is he
http://static.flickr.com/38/85111552_c5f8c63a2d_b.jpg

I just had some gongfu style, 10s 20s 10s 30s. It's earthy and a little
flat. It's very leaf-y, with lots of papery folds of leaf, and lots of
twigs.

Anyway, I didn't taste any hint of fruit or "jujube" after four
infusions. Is this just a name or is there actually jujube fragrance in
the tea? Hrm...

You can plug ÔæÏãש which means "jujube flavored brick" into Google.
You get more hits using Chinese characters for Google searches for
this type of information. AFAIK jujube (Chinese date) is more of a
flavor than aroma. It is a medicinal used to reduce blood sugar. So
it's use with puer makes sense which makes that claim anyway. I would
guess you could see pieces in the leaf. I have a cooked 2000 jujube
brick somewhere which I haven't tried. My notes show ÓÀÐË Yong Xing
factory in Yunnan.

Jim

Jason F in Los Angeles wrote:
> Hey there. Another shot in the dark to see if anyone has heard of
> Jujube Fragrant pu-erh. I just got a brick in chinatown. Took me an
> hour or so on zhongwen to figure out what the characters meant. It says
> it's from "Xishuangbanna Menghai Yong Ming Tea Factory"
>
> The picture is he
> http://static.flickr.com/38/85111552_c5f8c63a2d_b.jpg
>
> I just had some gongfu style, 10s 20s 10s 30s. It's earthy and a little
> flat. It's very leaf-y, with lots of papery folds of leaf, and lots of
> twigs.
>
> Anyway, I didn't taste any hint of fruit or "jujube" after four
> infusions. Is this just a name or is there actually jujube fragrance in
> the tea? Hrm...

I get a lot of listings for products, but not much decipherable
information about the brick or its flavor when I plug those characters
into google, at least in the first few pages of links. I'm going to
keep searching though.

My brick shows 永明 factory.

Interesting about the combination of jujube & puerh. I'll look closer
at the brick for any unusual pieces.

Feed it to a search engine and you'll probably get a host of other things!

"Jujube Flavoured" isn't correct, "Jujube Fragrant" is more accurate and to
the point.

There is no Jujube - correctly: dates, precisely: dried red dates - leaves
or fruit in the pu'er. It is much like saying : Camphor Fragrant Pu'er, you
won't be looking for camphor shavings in the tea, it is all the production
and 'ageing' method which creates the fragrance of dried red dates.

If this is foreign to you, Jason F, which I suspect it may not be, talk a
walk in Chinatown, stop by the asian grocery store, and ask for dried red
dates. Buy some home - there should be a lot of it now in Chinatown, it is
close to Chinese New Year and we love this fruit in our cuisine during this
festive season.

Take a deep sniff of the dates, register the notes and fragrance, and then
brew the tea, using really hot water.

Discard the 1st and 2nd round. Brew the 3rd round with short steeping time
(20 sec max) and then take a deep whiff of the tea.

You'll probably find some similarity between the two.


"Jason F in Los Angeles" > wrote in message
ups.com...
I get a lot of listings for products, but not much decipherable
information about the brick or its flavor when I plug those characters
into google, at least in the first few pages of links. I'm going to
keep searching though.

My brick shows ?? factory.

Interesting about the combination of jujube & puerh. I'll look closer
at the brick for any unusual pieces.

/11/06

> Feed it to a search engine and you'll probably get a host of other things!
>
> "Jujube Flavoured" isn't correct, "Jujube Fragrant" is more accurate and to
> the point.
>
> There is no Jujube - correctly: dates, precisely: dried red dates - leaves
> or fruit in the pu'er. It is much like saying : Camphor Fragrant Pu'er, you
> won't be looking for camphor shavings in the tea, it is all the production
> and 'ageing' method which creates the fragrance of dried red dates.

Danny, I've noticed some distinct sweet flavors in aged Pu'erhs from the
1950's and 1960's that might be described as plum-like or even date-like in
the sense you are describing. Is that it?
>
> If this is foreign to you, Jason F, which I suspect it may not be, talk a
> walk in Chinatown, stop by the asian grocery store, and ask for dried red
> dates. Buy some home - there should be a lot of it now in Chinatown, it is
> close to Chinese New Year and we love this fruit in our cuisine during this
> festive season.

I went down to our Chinatown a year or so ago and picked up some dried plum
to get the feel of what "plum" means in regard to Pu'erh. We have plums all
over our grocery stores here in the States, but the Pu'erh plum essence has
nothing to do with them. I'll repeat the search, this time for dates.
>
> Take a deep sniff of the dates, register the notes and fragrance, and then
> brew the tea, using really hot water.

That's the ticket. By the time you go to all that trouble, it's simply mind
over matter, or in this case, matter over mind. (Just joking.)

Michael

> Danny, I've noticed some distinct sweet flavors in aged Pu'erhs from the
> 1950's and 1960's that might be described as plum-like or even date-like
> in
> the sense you are describing. Is that it?
>>
Hi Michael, yes, in a broad sense, that's it. Only that these days, the art
of imitation has been near perfect, a hydro-thermal fermented pu'er that's
not more than 6 months old can produce these fragrances, not so much in
flavours...

>> If this is foreign to you, Jason F, which I suspect it may not be, talk a
>> walk in Chinatown, stop by the asian grocery store, and ask for dried red
>> dates. Buy some home - there should be a lot of it now in Chinatown, it
>> is
>> close to Chinese New Year and we love this fruit in our cuisine during
>> this
>> festive season.
>
> I went down to our Chinatown a year or so ago and picked up some dried
> plum
> to get the feel of what "plum" means in regard to Pu'erh. We have plums
> all
> over our grocery stores here in the States, but the Pu'erh plum essence
> has
> nothing to do with them. I'll repeat the search, this time for dates.
>>
You may be hunting down the wrong lane. You should be looking for prunes,
specifically, black prunes which are usually sold in medicinal halls and
used as a medicine. The sweet flavours in Pu'er have nothing to do with the
tastes of red dates or black prunes, these are in the fragrance of the tea,
not in the taste...

>> Take a deep sniff of the dates, register the notes and fragrance, and
>> then
>> brew the tea, using really hot water.
>
> That's the ticket. By the time you go to all that trouble, it's simply
> mind
> over matter, or in this case, matter over mind. (Just joking.)
>
Haha! Not really though, by the time one goes through all that trouble, the
fragrance of a red date is a distant memory, and one has to reconstruct that
fragrance to see if it matches the one that's whiffing from the cup in front
of you...and that should be fun to see how our mental faculty can help, or
fool, us.

I thought you could find yours since you didn't show the wrapper. I
have several factories with the name Ming in them but no corresponding
Yong. ÓÀ²ý is the only other factory I have with Yong. Are you
plowing through Zhongwen using PinYin or Radicals?

Jim

Jason F in Los Angeles wrote:
> I get a lot of listings for products, but not much decipherable
> information about the brick or its flavor when I plug those characters
> into google, at least in the first few pages of links. I'm going to
> keep searching though.
>
> My brick shows ÓÀÃ÷ factory.
>
> Interesting about the combination of jujube & puerh. I'll look closer
> at the brick for any unusual pieces.

"Space Cowboy" > writes:

> I thought you could find yours since you didn't show the wrapper. I
> have several factories with the name Ming in them but no corresponding
> Yong. ÓÀ²ý is the only other factory I have with Yong. Are you
> plowing through Zhongwen using PinYin or Radicals?

Try this search:

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=&n...s=&safe=images

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

Yong Ming tea factory is located in the Dai tribe automonous-state in
Menghai, Xishuangbanna. It was a processing plant for the big boys in the
past, but has established itself as a tea factory in the recent years.

The factory has recently revamped its organisational structure, factory
grounds etc in bid of the state-issued Quality and (product) Safety
certification some time this year.

Any tea factories which do not pass this certification would not be allowed
to operate.

Guess things are looking for the pu'er lovers...


"Lewis Perin" > wrote in message
news
> "Space Cowboy" > writes:
>
>> I thought you could find yours since you didn't show the wrapper. I
>> have several factories with the name Ming in them but no corresponding
>> Yong. ÓÀ²ý is the only other factory I have with Yong. Are you
>> plowing through Zhongwen using PinYin or Radicals?
>
> Try this search:
>
>
> http://www.google.com/search?as_q=&n...s=&safe=images
>
> /Lew
> ---
> Lew Perin /
> http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

Thanks everyone for all your input on this. I'm going to try to find
some red jujube's, dried, fresh, whatever I can find, to try to
associate the aromas. Hopefully some of those other cakes on the Taobao
site will make it to my Chinatown.

I also got a tea cake that my store sold as a Menghai 7262 cake, but it
looks...strange and possibly faked. At the very least, it's been
repackaged: the cake and wrapper look new but it has the old Zhongcha
label (yellow label) with the chinese for "Menghai Puerh Tea" written
on it, and a yellow zhongcha nei fei that reads "Xishuangbanna Dai
Nationality Autonomous Region Menghai Product". I'll post a new thread
with a picture link soon.