Sunday, October 28, 2007

Cloud's Tea Collection

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click to enlarge


Since I created the "Cloud's Tea Collection - Internet Articles" section in my personal tea photo album website, using this free public blog (it seems a bit difficult for me to control the panel) is not convenient.

Please visit Cloud's Tea Collection at http://www.cloudsteacollection.com.

Should you want to leave me a comment, just write it down here and the system will notify me throught e-mail.

Thanks for coming.

28 October 2007
Cloud (Hong Kong)
Cloud's Tea Collection - Private Tea Album
http://www.cloudsteacollection.com

Friday, September 29, 2006

New Cloud's Tea Collection Blog

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按下圖片取得640x480解像度 Click to view 640x480

Hello everybody,

From now on, I will post and move my blog to
http://www.puerh-teapot.com/blogs/cloud
I will not update this blog anymore.

The reason why I establish a new blog is that the blog provided by www.puerh-teapot.com allows me to classify those blog posts in different categories defined by myself. I found this is a very useful and convenient feature. If my readers want to view all the posts about "1980s", the system will lead him to all those relevant posts I marked and classified as "1980s".

Therefore, please come to:

http://www.puerh-teapot.com/blogs/cloud (English Version)
http://www.puerh-teapot.com/blogs/clouds (Chinese Version)

2007-10-28 update message to all:
(The above blogs' severs were closed so that my new blogs no longer exist).

By the way, instead of writing a good blog, I would like to update my own domain
http://www.cloudsteacollection.com

Therefore, click to Cloud's Tea Collection to view the updates http://www.cloudsteacollection.com

If you want to write me something, you may leave a comment here. Thanks.

Cloud (Hong Kong)
Cloud's Tea Collection - Private Tea Album
http://www.cloudsteacollection.com

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Further Comparision of "Sumprme Yichang Hao 2003"





Supreme Yichang Hao 2003 Tea Cake 250g - "Comparision: Loosely stored outside the original stack (left) and stored in the original stack (right)". Photo was taken on 21 September 2006.

"Truly Simple Elegant Tea Cake" and "Small Yellow Print Seven-sons Tea Cake"



Marshaln on September 11th, 2006 06:51 pm (UTC)
Re: "Iron" Tea Cake. Give me some time - I will write on this issue with pictures
Do you own any Zhenchunya hao? 真淳雅號?

and

Marshaln on September 3rd, 2006 11:10 am (UTC)
Re: 1999 Xia Guan square tea bricks
It looks like you shop sometimes at Sunsing, as the tong of stuff in the bottom left
(in the white polyester bag wrapper) looks like their packaging. Which cake is it?
Other than Simplified Font, got any other goodies? Yellow label? Blue? Red?? :)


Dear Marshaln,

I am busy these days.
I reply you by posting photos.

I have got some samples of "Truly Simple Elegant Tea Cake" (or "Zhenchunya Hao").
For Seven-sons Small Yellow Print (Tea Cake), I have some.
For Blue Print Round Tea Cake, I have brewed it and, therefore, not much left.

Clouds (Hong Kong)
http://www.cloudsteacollection.com

Three Years' Growth of Supreme Yichang Hao 2003










This tea cake was stored and traced for 3 years. We can see that there are changes of the tea cake colour gradually from these photos.

Explanations in my Private Photo Album: This is my tracing sample for comparision. I will not brew it in the near future. The storage environment has been like this: Clear and Dry, No Ventilation, Wrapped Additional Papers, Keep it in Dark Place. However in that storage environment, the tea cake still ages and grows itself. It's time for you to review how you store your precious tea cakes.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

“Simplified Characters” vs “Traditional Characters” (simple comparison)


Ocpuerh had the following comments under topic "This is my first Puerh Tea Post in my Blog" on 12 September 2006.


Dear Cloud...Thank for the info...WHat would make one Royal...Was there different series of that cake produced with different grade leaves, or aren't they all the same recipe each year, making only one production type. And what do you say is the dirrerence between the Simplified CHaracter and the Traditional Character (like the 8653)..Or is it just a different wrapper? Thanks for your blogspace..OCP


I am now writing on the second issue, that is, the differences between Zhongcha Brand Simplified Chinese Characters Seven-sons Tea Cake (hereinafter called “Simplified Characters”) and Zhongcha Brand Traditional Chinese Characters Seven-sons Tea Cake (hereinafter called “Traditional Characters”).

As I said in my previous preliminary post that there are differences in a few areas such as tea leaves used, tea cake moulds, aging years, wrapping papers.

I would like to discuss these two tea cakes in the following different aspects in a summary way:-



Aging years
First of all, the market in the Chinese puerh community has a general mutual understanding that the “Simplified Characters” were produced in the middle of 1970s to early 1980s while the “Traditional Characters” were produced since 1986 (because of the Tea Code: 8653) to early of 1990s.

In other words, the genuine 1970s or early 1980s “Simplified Characters” was ceased to be produced since the middle of 1980s. Therefore, we can make a conclusion that the genuine “Simplified Characters” definitely have at least 20 years plus aging years now.

On the other hand, because the “Traditional Characters” had been producing since 1986 to early 1990s, the aging time for the “Traditional Characters” are just ranging from 10 years to 20 years. We can say that “Traditional Characters” is certainly a younger tea than the “Simplified Characters”.

Unfortunately, the issue of the “Traditional Characters” were complicated by re-manufacturing with similar wrapping papers since around 1998 from Xiaguan Tea Factory. Therefore, it is the same in the Chinese puerh community that people newly entered into the puerh world are easily confused by the late 1990s “Traditional Characters”.

Keep it simple at this stage if you are a beginner by remembering the following information:-
“Simplified Characters” = 1970s to 1980s middle
“Traditional Characters” = 1986 to 1990s early
Forget those exceptions at this stage. There are always exceptions in the markets.

Manufacturer
It is believed that both the “Simplified Characters” and the “Traditional Characters” were producd by Xiaguan Tea Factory.

This is the general principle only. It is believe that there is an exception for one of the series of “Simplified Characters” which were produced by a tea factory other than Xiaguan Tea Factory. Please read on to see which tea factory it is.



Wrapping papers
The common warpping characteristics of both the ““Simplified Characters” and the “Traditional Characters” were that they do not have any inside tickets (“neifei”) nor any description tickets (“neipiao”). Therefore, even though some “Simplified Characters” and the “Traditional Characters” are very good tea, people are not willing to buy because they do not have any significant identifications. When people buy these two series of tea cake, they can just make reference to the tea cake itself only.

If the wrapping paper is still original without being opened, you can still identify between them because the printings of the wrapping paper are obviously different.

However, if the tea cake is bare (I mean without any wrapping paper), it is difficult for people to identify .

In general, there are differences between the printing on the wrapping papers. Please making reference to the cicules in the photos and compare.

Tea Leaves used
Since I was not the producer of these tea cakes, I am unable to figure out the original tea leave production areas in Yunnan by simply drinking the tea. However, by an old puerh tea collector’s sense, what I can tell is that “Simplified Characters” tea leaves seems to be compressed with those tea leaves similar to the masterpieces like “Blue Print Round Tea Cake” (hereinafter called “Blue Print”). When I brew and compare with “Simplified Characters” and “Blue Print Round Tea Cake” at the same time, I found that they are similar in taste by brewing them in a stronger way. The obvious differences between the “Simplified Characters” and the “Blue Print” are that “Blue Print” had a strong tea “qi” and tasted richer in a old tea sense.

However, the tea leaves used in “Traditional Characters” were not as good as the material used in “Simplified Characters”. That may explain the reason why the selling price of “Traditional Characers” is always half of the “Simplified Characters”.

Raw and Ripe (Sheng and Shou)
[I am sorry that I do not agree with the translation “cooked” because I think there is nothing to do with cooking when producing Shou puerh tea. Actually, I would prefer saying that it is a process of “Artificial Fermentation” (“Wodui”), however, I don’t want make it complicated at this stage, just “Ripe Puerh” is appropriate.]

To keep it simple, I would like to say as follows:-
1. “Simplified Characters” - must be Raw because there is no discovery of any Ripe “Simplified Characters”.
2. “Traditional Characters” – may be Raw or Ripe because some early 1990s “Traditional Characters” was found to be Ripe tea.

Tea Cake Appearances from different Moulds
Since both “Simplified Characters” and the “Traditional Characters” were compressed by machines, the compression force was too strong that the tea cakes right now are still very hard. Therefore, people also called these two series of aged tea cake as “Discus Tea Cake” which means very hard. Some people called it as an “Iron Cake” or “Iron Tea Cake”. I have expressed my view on this issue in my comment in this community. There is nothing to do with “IRON” except extracting its meaning of “HARD”. Therefore, I think “Discus” can make people imagine that the tea cake is actually is hard, strong, heave and having a round disk shape.

Anyway….




Once you learn that the both “Simplified Characters” and “Traditional Characters” can be called as “Discus Tea Cake”, then, how do we distinguish between them?
This is a very practical issue.

Actually, it is not easy and quit hard because (if the tea cake is bare without any wrapping papers) their appearance shape are quit similar. We have to distinguish them by view and pay attention to the the formula of tea leaves from the surface and back of the bare tea cake. This needs a long time practice and experience.

The discussion up to the present moment can be more complicated by telling you that both “Simplified Characters” and “Traditional Characters” has two different appearance shapes. In short, “Simplified Characters” has two different shapes from different moulds while “Traditional Characters” has the same situation.

In the series of “Discus Tea Cake”, the shape of the tea cake moulds can be divided into two categories:-

1. traditional shape with a dome-shape hollow. [A0037 in my Private Photo Album]
2. disk shape without any dome-shape hollow but with some nails from the back. [A0036 in my Private Photo Album]

Reading till here, tired? A lot of information?
OK, then, I would like to advise that the aforesaid exception of manufacturer of “Simplified Characters” is “Kunming Tea Factory”. The market believes an exception that the “Simplified Characters” wrapping up with a disk shape tea cake without any dome-shape hollow but with some nails from the back was actually produced by “Kunming Tea Factory”. Why? Because there a sample left in Yunnan tea importing and exporting company on which it was written that the sample tea was “Kunming Tea Factory”.




Taste
Well, today, I just give the general ideas of some simple differences between “Simplified Characters” and “Traditional Characters”. Even in our Chinese discussion forum, we can argue and discuss on this issue for several hundred posts. Therefore, please feel fee it ask further questions in order to let me know what kind of area you would like to know. I think the most effective way to learn and enhance knowledge of yourself is by Q&A.

Cloud (Hong Kong)
http://www.cloudsteacollection.com/

Benefit of Drinking Tea




A Hong Kong local newspaper "Metro Hong Kong" released an article "Benefit of Drinking Tea" on 15 September 2006. The article was written by a professional medical doctor. It is worth reading.

http://www.metrohk.com.hk/news.php?startDate=15092006&newscat=8&newsid=24780
Remarks: Owing to the copyright reason, the contents must not be copied and pasted here. Please view the contents from the original source. [Contents are written in Chinese]

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Re: "Guangyun Tribute Tea Cake"





  1. Ocpuerh had the following comments under topic "This is my first Puerh Tea Post in my Blog" on 12 September 2006.


    Dear Cloud...Thank for the info...WHat would make one Royal...Was there different series of that cake produced with different grade leaves, or aren't they all the same recipe each year, making only one production type. And what do you say is the dirrerence between the Simplified CHaracter and the Traditional Character (like the 8653)..Or is it just a different wrapper? Thanks for your blogspace..OCP


    Dear Ocpuerh,

    "Guangyun Tribute Tea Cake" in Chinese is "廣雲貢餅" (I hope you can view Chinese Character on your screen).

    As I said in my post, it is also called "Guangyun Gong Beeng" (translated by pronunciation).

    "Gong" is the pronunciation of "貢" (the third character of the name in Chinese) which means "to pay tribute to our emperor" in the ancient time. Therefore, I use the term "Tribute" to express the idea reflecting from the literal meaning of Chinese that it was a tea which was so good that it had to be paid as tribute to the emperor. I guess it is the intention of the nominator who named this 1960 Guangdong Tea Cake as "Guangyun Tribute Tea Cake". The nominator, I believe, was Mr. Deng who wrote the book Puerh Tea in Chinese. However, "Guangyun Tribute Tea Cake" is just a name which means supreme. There was no longer any tribute event in 1960s.

    "Tribute" is a direct translation of its meaning.

    ---------------------

    "Guangyun Tribute Tea Cake", in my view, is the earliest "Guangdong Tea Cake" which could be seen so far.

    According to those tea experts including Mr. Deng who wrote the book Puerh Tea, the sources of tea leave compressed in the early "Guangdong Tea Cake" containing tea leaves from Yunnan. That's why those experts called this special type of "Guangdong Tea Cake" as "Guangyun Tribute Tea Cake" because the taste of "Guangyun Tribute Tea Cake" is really good and supreme.

    Without knowing the reason, the quality of 1970s "Guangdong Tea Cake" dropped. It was no longer having a good taste to satisfy those experienced tea experts. As you may be correct that the recipe of "Guangyn Roayl Tea Cake" might no longer be used in the later 1970s "Guangdong Tea Cake". In short, that means 1970s "Guangdong Tea Cake does not contain tea leaves imported from Yunnan province.

    Therefore, you are right that "Guangyn Roayl Tea Cake" were just only one production in 1960s. At least, this is my view.

    I have both 1960s "Guangyun Tribute Tea Cake" and 1970s "Guangdong Tea Cake". The taste differences between these two tea cakes are quite substantial.

    Therefore, my view is that 1970s "Guangdong Tea Cake" is just ordinary "Guangdong Tea Cake" which used the ordinary tea leaves collected in non-Yunnan areas while, however, "Guangyn Roayl Tea Cake" had mixed with Yunnan tea leaves. The taste of "Guangyun Tribute Tea Cake" is so great that it can be distinguished from ordinary "Guangdong Tea Cake" from 1980s, 1990s and even 1970s.

    What I can tell is that "Guangyun Tribute Tea Cakes" were very rare right now because Chinese collectors have been collecting this tea since 1995. As the taste of it is very great with a relatively lower price at that time, collectors were very willing to brew this tea because collectors do not want to brew those expensive one. Since "Guangyn Roayl Tea Cake" can offer half quality of those masterpieces, why should the collectors not brew "Guangyn Roayl Tea Cake" as it was releatively cheap at that time (1995~2000)?

    Even though I have got so many tea cakes right now, I only have several real 1960s "Guangyun Tribute Tea Cakes".

    Ocpuerh, can you tell from the pictures I posted that the tea leaves used and the tea cake molds in 1960s' and the 1970s' are different?
    --------------------------

    The differences between Zhongcha Brand Simplified Chinese Characters and Zhongcha Brand Traditional Chinese Characters are substantial in a few areas such as tea leaves used, tea cake molds, aging years, wrapping papers, etc.

    I think I will write on this issue in a separate post rather then just leaving a long comments mixed with comments of "Guangyn Roayl Tea Cake". My schedule is tight this week. Give me some times.

Cloud's Tea Collection - Private Tea Album




I have been posting tea photos in Chinese Puerh Tea Community for some years. In order to centralize my pictures, I try to put those photos starting from this month under my newly registered domain. Just easy for me to upload pictures.

You will understand my purpose after you read the recital.

You may come to visit by clicking the above picture or by clicking the following link.

http://www.cloudsteacollection.com

Hope you will enjoy the photos there.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Doubts from phyll_sheng

phyll_sheng posted a message at http://community.livejournal.com/puerh_tea on September 3rd, 2006 05:50 am (UTC)

He said,
"Re: 1999 Xia Guan square tea bricks

I'm still very very skeptical of your claims, cloudstea. Now, if you could send a sample of that 1999年5月 pu-erh to us, you might just clear the clouds away.
As usual, I make bad jokes.
"

I posted some photos in a previous post like:-





Anway, I replied phyll_sheng as follows:-

Dear phyll_sheng,

Sorry for my late reply.
I was too busy this week.

I am referring to your post on September 3rd, 2006 05:50 am (UTC)
you said,
>I'm still very very skeptical of your claims, cloudstea.

It doesn't matter. As I said, "what I have said is just my words."
Whether the information I provided is reliable will depend on how you judge my words. I would advise you (actually I always advise that to every tea lover) not to fully believe in me. Independent mind in tea stuff is very important because TEA, especially Puerh Tea, is not like red wine having a well developed aging system and markets.

Puerh Tea is new to the Western world. To be honest, in fact, it is also new to 95% of Chinese people. Even in the place of Puerh Tea storage origin - Hong Kong, aged puerh tea is new to 95% of the Hong Kong population.

You said,
>Now, if you could send a sample of that 1999年5月 pu-erh to us, you might just clear the clouds away.

Why not?
Here is my e-mail address: lord@tsl.net.hk
If you let me have an address, I will mail you the sample from Hong Kong.

Please use this subject anyway: "Tea Sample - 1999 Xia Guan square tea bricks".
Otherwise, sometimes, my Norton anti-spams will put irregular mail to the trash directly.

You will get some Hong Kong stamps as well when I mail sample to you.
Whatever you are, I will mail. I undertake this.

How much tea sample do you need? Let me know.
I must stress that, sample only, I am not offering to sell anything, do you know I'm saying?