Theme - China

„da shu; 大树 - 大,da -big,old. 树, shu- tree. Big/old tree. A term used to refer to trees that could be anything from say 30 old years to 70 yrs old. Many different places have their own approach, so there appears to be no fixed definition of what qualifies as da shu. See Gu shu. “

„tong; 筒 - Literally a barrel or barrel shaped object. A tong in Yunnan tea culture is a bundle of 7 tea cakes wrapped in the outer skin of bamboo which naturally sheds from around the base of the bamboo stem. Each cake weighs 357grams so making a total of 2,499 gm. Said by some to have been calculated in order to remain under a specific legislated weight of 2.5 kg. There were originally said to be 8 cakes in a tong. The 8th being paid as a levy. An earlier unit of weight in China was the liang. A cake of tea weighed 7 liang and 7 cakes in a tong made 49 liang. “

„cang wei; 仓味. The flavour of tea that has been stored (poorly). Often used to refer to the aroma of 'Wet Stored' tea.“