Comments on The Half-Dipper: 2005 Menghai Pengcheng "Yuanyexiang"

A story about drowning in guano sounds very much i...

2009-07-02T09:50:05.140+01:00

A story about drowning in guano sounds very much in the spirit of Zhuangzi. :)

Toodlepip,

Hobbes

My professor in university translated lots of Chin...

2009-07-01T16:20:56.871+01:00

My professor in university translated lots of Chinese ghost stories and stories of the supernatural.

One test, he had us translate a story of one author's speculation of what happens underneath the path of the Peng's magnificent flight. Suffice it to say, the great bird dropped a feather whose quill was wide enough to ride a horse through. It also dropped something a lot less

Well, I won't try to clutter up this space further...

2009-07-01T15:02:49.744+01:00

Well, I won't try to clutter up this space further, let's talk on email :)

Just ignore that clause and read the rest of the a...

2009-07-01T13:54:00.677+01:00

Just ignore that clause and read the rest of the article, then ;)

Best wishes,

Hobbes

Thanks for the link. It's hard to find things som...

2009-07-01T13:51:28.267+01:00

Thanks for the link. It's hard to find things sometimes on puerhshop.

A lot can change for a tea in four years, so I'm just not sure if it's fair to say a tea is not as "clean and fresh" when you're comparing it with a tea that came off the mountain a few months ago.

...unless you're referring to my comparison with t...

2009-07-01T06:32:24.682+01:00

...unless you're referring to my comparison with the 2009 Nadacha Bulang!

This Pengcheng tea is just plain bad - empty and rough - and it is on that basis that I compare it with another cake (the 2009 Nadacha cake, in this case). This is cheap tea, made poorly, and strikes me as "filler" - while the Nadacha, even though from a different year, is a recent example in

Dear MarshalN, While the link lasts, the vendor...

2009-07-01T06:21:22.733+01:00

Dear MarshalN,

While the link lasts, the vendor page for the 2005 tea that I wrote about in this article may be found here.

You mention a comparison with a 2009, but I don't see comparison anywhere in my article - neither 05-09 or 05-05. Wherefore

I'm not saying, btw, that this tea might have been...

2009-07-01T05:15:08.089+01:00

I'm not saying, btw, that this tea might have been a lovely, wonderful, etc tea in 05. Rather, I'm just saying that an 05-05 comparison (or even an 05-06 comparison) might be a bit more equitable.

I don't seem to find the cake on the puerhshop web...

2009-07-01T05:13:17.390+01:00

I don't seem to find the cake on the puerhshop website -- is it gone?

Comparing anything 05 with an 09 tea is going to be an unfair comparison though -- an 05 tea will most likely have lost its initial fragrance and not having enough time to age -- it's that awkward phase of 4-5 years old tea that really is not very good for consumption.

JenB - Good spotting! Good knowledge - thanks, Ji...

2009-06-30T07:06:05.212+01:00

JenB - Good spotting!

Good knowledge - thanks, Jim!

Zero - I recall Daoists of his era were all in favour of wine-and-the-moon, so I bet they were great company :)

Toodlepip,

Hobbes

Hooray for the Zhuangzi, my favorite book ever! ...

2009-06-30T04:21:58.871+01:00

Hooray for the Zhuangzi, my favorite book ever!

"A state in which 'this' and 'that' no longer find their opposites is called the hinge of the Way."

I think I could hang out with that guy!

Hi, Hobbes; A great review as always. FYI, Pengc...

2009-06-29T23:03:37.111+01:00

Hi, Hobbes;

A great review as always.

FYI, Pengcheng Tea factory was considered as a spin-off, as it was operated by an ex-manager, Du and a few ex-key-employees of Menghai Tea Factory, like many small tea factories in the area, eg. 6FMT, Guoyang, Haiwan and etc.

I agree none of these factories has the power to overturn mighty Menghai Tea Factory.

Molar conversion! Awesome. back to lurking

2009-06-29T17:51:43.746+01:00

Molar conversion! Awesome.

*back to lurking*

Paradoxically, the same book goes on to plot the n...

2009-06-29T17:08:47.922+01:00

Paradoxically, the same book goes on to plot the number of individual characters used in an increasingly large corpus of "daily" Chinese text.

The curve is amazing: learn the most common 500 Chinese characters, and you have covered approx. 2/3rds of the corpus of "daily" text surveyed, leaving 1/3rd of the characters unknown.

Learn the next-most common

I guarantee that everyone who ever studied Chinese...

2009-06-29T17:02:58.822+01:00

I guarantee that everyone who ever studied Chinese in the history of the world for a period of at least one week knows more compounds than I do, for the record ;)

Ask not how many characters a person knows in Chin...

2009-06-29T16:55:10.821+01:00

Ask not how many characters a person knows in Chinese, but how many compounds.

Thanks, I needed that! And thanks also for alerting me to Peng Cheng - who knows, they may eventually amount to something...