Ho Chi Minh - Di Phat Teashop

 I am in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam this week.  I looked up the internet hoping to find a Chinese tea shop. My search yielded this shop, Di Phat teashop.  The images suggested that this tea shop looked very old and I decide to make my way to the tea shop. 

The shop is located at 122, Phu Tho, Phuong 1. Quan 11 HO Chi Minh.  This shop has been in business for almost 70 years. The shop had that old antique shop feel, like it was frozen in time.  I really enjoyed my visit there. I actually visited this shop twice while I was in Vietnam. 

The proprietor, Mr Kuek came from Chaozhou China. His family produced dan chong tea under the Wu Tong brand.  Mr Kuek was patient and allowed me to sample his tea. 

I found Wu Dong tea to be good. Their higher grade tea which were named 8 fairies and narcissus was good. There was no bitterness and the tea had a long aromatic mouthfeel.  I will write more on the tea in my later post.

I would strongly recommend a visit to this very old tea shop and sample their tea.  A must visit for a Chinese tea drinker. 

Pek Sin Choon Theet Lo Han

 

It's already 2026 and I got myself a tin of Theet Lo Han.  The tin has 50 hand wrapped paper packets of tea.   Theet Lo Han is how you pronounced this tea in Fujian dialect while Tie Lo Han is the mandarin pronunciation.  Kenny the CEO of Pek Sin Choon was at the shop and he treated me to a hot bowl of Chinese dessert as well as a session of tea. 

I happened to have a few packets of Theet Lo Han that I had kept for more than 10 years and proceeded to have a tea session at home. 

This is not a top shelf tea. I considered that this tea would be a mid range grade. In Singapore this tea is normally drank in restaurants or shops that serve pork ribs tea (a popular Chinese meal eaten with a bowl of rice). 

The older packet which I brewed has some aged taste. Overall this is an inexpensive tea and I would recommend this tea for its traditional packing...... and it's a tea from a Singapore teashop as well. 

2007 Xiaguan Jinsi Tuo Gold Ribbon

Readers would know that I am a big fan of Xiaguan pu erh tea.  My collection of Xiaguan tea are mainly from the years 2003-2009.  It is a fairly large collection of Xiaguan as I tend to buy them in bulk more than 12 years ago. 

Xiaguan pu erh tea is not expensive. With time in storage, the tea produced an aroma and taste that I considered high quality compared to other pu erh brands of the same age.  I particularly enjoy the smoky offerings by Xiaguan.  Some of these tea age to a camphor like aroma finish which I enjoyed tremendously. 

I am also intrigued by the various traditional compressed pu erh tea shapes from Xiaguan; from the iron cakes, nest tuos, melon and mushroom shaped tea. 

I just opened a 2007 gold ribbon tuo. This tea is not smoky but it has nice honey and floral notes in the tea. A sweet aftertaste. The 19 year old tea now brews to a dark amber colour.  I call this tea the 'honey tuo'.  I recommend. 

Merry Christmas

 

To all my tea readers and tea buddies. Merry Christmas !

I will continuing my tea adventures next year visiting Malaysia, Hong Kong and Guangzhou and visiting my tea drinking groups in these countries. If you are in Singapore, contact me and we can meet to have a meal and a tea exchange as well. 

Live long and prosper. 

Will the real 7542 please stand up.

Will the real 7542 please stand up.  If you are a serious pu erh tea drinker.  The 7542 raw pu erh cake would need no introduction.  This raw cake is produced by the famous Taetea (aka Dayi) tea factory. Very old 7542 are highly sought after by both tea drinkers and tea collectors.  

I myself have been drinking and buying the Dayi 7542. The pix showed a tong (7 cakes) in their original packaging. The paper wrapper stack is a 2008 production while the bamboo wrapped one is the most recent 2025 production. 

If I am not wrong, the 7542 is a yearly production offered by Taetea tea factory. I noticed over the past 15 years, the tea factory used fancy wrappers to wrap their tea cakes. There is nothing wrong as there are tea collectors that might be persuaded to buy the tea because of the fancy wrappers.   Not a joke. 

I  will try to sample the new 7542s when they are out.  This is where the mystery of the 7542 appeared.  Yes, every yearly batch of 7542 would taste different in terms of taste and aroma as the tea are from different yearly harvests.  Well, if you are a serious tea drinker of 7542 like me, I would expect that there would be a signature taste and aroma in the tea albeit the different years.  This was not the case in those 7542 I had sampled for the past 10 years. 

In my personal opinion while I sampled the tea, I found the 7542, produced in the different years, was a different animal altogether. Some tasted very green and light almost like green tea, some 7542 had a slightly woody and herbal taste. I believed that the newer 7542 were produced in such a way that the tea was drinkable now, no need for storage.  The 7542 over the past 10 over years were to me generally lighter in taste and aroma.  This is a deliberate decision by Taetea. The 7542 recipe had been adjusted yearly for reasons I cannot understand.   I personally believed a new light tasting tea cannot age to a strong tea with time in storage.  

I bought a tong of this year's 7542. This offering is different.  This tea is mildly smoky and lightly sweet. It is moderately strong.  Although Taetea tea factory is an innovative Chinese tea factory. I am not sure if they should be 'tempering' with the 7542 recipe. 

My 2 cents worth. 

Sow Mee White Tea

 

Sow Mee otherwise known as Shou Mei is a white tea.  This 100g box is an inexpensive white tea that are sold in many Chinese grocery stores. I had seen them even in San Francisco and Chicago chinatown shops.  A very inexpensive tea. 

Shou Mei tea looked very unappetising. The tea looked brown and unsightly.  However when I brewed this tea, there is a light floral fragrance.  The tea tasted lightly and delicately sweet. This tea is good even when chilled as well. 

I had bought several boxes and the tea is already 10 years of old. An enjoyable drink. I recommend. 

2004 Xiaguan Jincha Mushroom

Once upon a time, Xiaguan tea factory started a brand called 'Tibetan flame', which produced pu erh tea specially for export to western China. This tea was normally brewed with milk and spices and this tea was an important dietary requirement of the people there.   With no proper transport in the olden days, this tea was delivered by horses that traverse the mountainous terrain.  Pu erh tea had to be compressed to shapes that make transporting these tea easily. 

Today tea is easily transported to these neighbouring areas.  However, we still get to see thsee various shapes of compressed tea today.  Tuo or nest shape, cakes and bricks and even mushroom shaped.  My guess mushroom shaped tea could be an auspicious shape to the people there. 

I opened a 2004 Xiaguan raw mushroom. This 250g tea was easy to break open. This tea originally came in a pack of 3.   This tea is woody with a nice medicinal aroma and taste. The tea is very dark amber in colour when brewed. Strong and mellow. Very nice.  Wicked stuff.  I will brew the tea for Christmas for my tea drinking guests.