Naka = 那卡, right? Took me a few seconds to realize. I have recently bought some pretty high quality Pu Erh. If I have time one day, I may upload the photos.
If you enjoy fiction books, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane is a good read. Great tea info too.
Very impressed by a recent cup of Taiwanese spring High Mountain Oolong, Chi Lai Shan (Qilai Shan 奇萊山), Rui-Lin Xu tea farm. Very fresh and long lasting vegetal aroma.
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I just came across an article. A Chinese tea master based in Paris (La Maison des Trois Thés) recommends these 2 water:
Mont Roucous
Smell: daffodil and freshness
Taste: roundness, almost silky without mineral taste
Vittel
Smell: chalky, with frictions of schist, mineral
Taste: on the palate, minerality is accentuated, and an after taste of bitterness
Volvic was recommended for the espresso machine because of its very low mineralisation. By using Volvic we wouldn’t need water filters.
I bought on a whimsy since I liked their regular tea drinks when I was in LA area:
Mmm… I think it smells better then when drunk lol. Dunno, I might have a more romanticized imagination on the taste, but it just seemed to be a little too acidic for me.
Hi. Just two comments. The link you have is to the young citrus pu erh tea. Is that what you got? They are about one inch in diameter. The small green citrus (小青柑) pu erh tea is popular now, and it has a potent, raw, and acidic taste (afterall these fruits are raw – very sour in real life) to it. The more traditional ones are the big ripen red citrus (大红柑) with Pu Erh tea They are about 2-3 inch in diameter. The tea is milder and sweeter. You can tea-taste the big red citrus Pu Erh tea next time and see if you like it better.
I don’t think Wing Hop Fung has the best Citrus Pu Erh tea (either green nor red) now. It has a lot of good Pu Erh tea, but not these.
Thanks for your feedbacks.
For comparison (not mine):
Yeah the ones I unwrapped are these tiny small citrus but didn’t really think anything of the size since well… they’re dried (and yeah the little tea balls are roughly the size of a lindt’ truffle). But now that you mention it… that really makes sense haha. Yeah, I definitely think the small ones were not for me. I’ll definitely have to find the larger ones next time.
Yeah, I just bought this one on a whim at the Pasadena location of Bird Pick, not the Arcadia/Santa Anita park location with wing hop. I recall Red Blossom Tea in SF is one of the better purveyors of teas, but I rarely ever step in there though I pass by often enough.
I remember in your earlier post you had mentioned the Citrus tea from Hong Kong, and that one was referring to is the mature (ripen) citrus pu erh tea.
大 紅 柑 普 洱茶
Mandarin Zest Pu Er Tea $ 388
陳皮プーアール茶
陳皮馥郁
Anyway, have a tea-test next time when you are at Wing Hop Fung. Ask to try this following one. If I remember right, it has decent red dried citrus. Unfortunately, I thought the Pu Erh tea leaves are not great. Still give it a try. If anything just to see what it tastes like.
For your green raw citrus pu erh, give them out as gifts. They are very popular these days.
As for Red Blossom Tea… I passed by and walked in a couple times, I am not impressed by its selection to be honest.
Size comparison:
Ah thanks for the suggestions! I’ll probably be around LA sometime… ish lol.
Just curious if most people buy their tea online now or some other places not in the US?
I buy some tea in US, and some from oversea.
Now, based on your other posts, I just realized that you probably don’t live in LA, and you only meant that you were at LA before. In which case, I am sure you will have opportunity to try the red ripen citrus tea in your area.
If you ever go to Oakland Chinatown, you can visit Golden Tea Shop. It offers a couple varieties of the red and green citrus pu erh tea. I bought some, but haven’t had the chance to try them. The store is small, but it looks more serious (with decent selection) than many bigger and more glorious teashops.
Jeet Sing at Millbrae also has a small selection of tea – including red ripen citrus Pu Erh tea which I think is reasonable. This is a herbal store, and it has a rather focus Pu Erh tea selection toward the back of the store.
Have fun
Just tried the one I bought from Golden Tea Shop (in case you have access to Oakland). It is reasonable.
Ha yeah, I do not live around Southern California (well… I’m not within a reasonable driving distance). Thanks for giving me a heads up on those shops! The milbrae one is probably easier access for me, but I’m occasionally on the Oakland side as well.
Let me update here to correct my previous statement.
Dried citrus ChenPi (陳皮) is not permitted to be shipped from Asia into US unless with proper documentation, and most of us won’t unless you are running a business – so effectively a no for most of us. I think I was able to ship the ChenPi earlier because it wasn’t searched. In my latest shipment, these ChenPi was confiscated and destroyed.
A FYI
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Now you need to have them smuggled! 
I hope can you find quality stuff in US.
Thanks. No worry. I already have some really high quality sun dried Xinhui Chenpi (新會陳皮) from last time, and bought some reasonable Xinhui Chenpi here in US, but those may be oven dried, not sun dried.
If you are into Dragonwell tea, the “First Pick” has been harvested. I bought some about 2 weeks ago, but I bet it came out about 3-4 weeks ago.
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ElsieDee. I went to visit Denong and drank there. The tea session there is pretty good. The tea master/server is communicative. This is different than a couple of tea sessions I had in NYC, where as the tea masters in NYC were much quieter. Back to Denong, the tea session is on the expensive side though. I saw prices ranged from $20-ish to $50-ish. I asked for a tea session for $35 – Bulang tea (布朗). While this is about the same price I have experienced in NYC. Denong only uses about 3 gram to brew, whereas a couple of tea shops in NYC use $7-8 gram.
Overall, I like the experience. I didn’t buy the tea at the spot. Funny enough… if you look at Denong website and Bana website. Bana tea company sells Denong brand tea cheaper than Denong sells it own. For example, Bana tea company sells Denong 2016 Commemorative Raw Pu-erh for $39. Denong tea sells its 2016 Commemorative Raw Pu-erh for $54.
What I do highly recommend is the Taiwanese tea shop Yo Shan Tea (遊山茶訪) at Arcadia if anyone is interested in Taiwanese Oolong. The staff is knowledgeable and communicative. The tea session is wonderful with a great atmosphere. While it is a tea shop which focuses only Taiwanese Oolong, it goes very deep in it. There were at least 40 kinds of Taiwan Oolong tea it is selling. I had a tea session there and bought two small tea cans. Much better than any Ten Ren tea shops in US.
