Nobody really drinks it much anymore down here in Guangdong. The reputation of adulteration is just too great.
I HAVE HAD some old TGY in the past where they throw their leftover rolled leaves in a barrel and take it out and roast it yearly. Had some 25 year old that tasted very much like a mellower verion of Dongding Taiwan oolong.
But, ya. TGY is simply too "fake" for most tea drinkers to handle here.
On Sun Aug 5 08:33:15 2012 Warren Peltier wrote:
Just had a 30-year old Tieguanyin today with some tea friends here in Fuzhou. This was tea that tea farmers hung up inside the rafters of their house and forgot about.
Tieguanyin has gotten a really bad name lately and fallen out of favor with tea drinkers. Tieguanyin vendors struggle to stay in business, at least in Fuzhou.
Sometime this week, I'm going with a group of tea friends to Anxi where we'll make some tea ourselves. Hope that works out well. I'm told the raw leaves will only cost 1 yuan per pound.
Kind of strange how Yancha has gone for a wild ride lately too, but a lot of us think the Yancha market is going to spiral downward soon because leaf quality has really gone down in recent years; plus they're doing lots of tea blending to make up for
taste and fragrance discrepancies.
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