High Quality, Low Price

General thoughts: When I first received the HRT Huaruite Rosewood NCT V 5 in the mail I was really impressed by the way the blade looked. It was shiny (seemed to have come pre-sealed), had a really elegant veneer, and seemed to be very similar to the Stiga Rosewood in terms of overall appearance. Supposedly, roughly 80% of the material used in the HRT Huaruite Rosewood is the same as the Stiga Rosewood. Looking at both of them, I couldn’t tell any difference, except for the company names printed on the blades / the badge and butt-cap.

I glued the blade up and tested it with the demons of the fiery table tennis underworld (long pips and short pips). After trying out Tibhar Grass D. TecS and 729 Dr. Evil, I felt that the blade was well suited for hitting through the ball with short pips, but really didn’t allow the D. TecS to work its magic. I definitely enjoyed using Dr. Evil on this blade as I was able to easily redirect the ball, however, I felt like I lost a considerable amount of spin reversal when using the D. TecS.

I then gave the Huaruite a shot with some less malevolent creatures (a few inverted rubbers). The blade is fairly stiff, making shots very predictable at the cost of losing some “flex” which many loopers depend on. I didn’t find this to be a problem with Hurricane 3 because I was still able to lift the ball pretty easily with the tacky topsheet (sort of similar to pairing H3 with a clipper in that respect) – but, when I tried a few non tacky tensors (Reactor Thunder and Tenergy 64) I did have some difficult lifting heavy underspin due to the lack of flex.

When blocking fast loops with either pips or inverted I rarely lost control of the ball (which happened to me constantly when using a super flexy blade like the Butterfly Timo Boll ZLF). When my opponent varied the speed and spin (even heavy side spin) of his shots, I was still able to maintain a high degree of accuracy. With my primary blade (Viscaria), I enjoy some added flex that I don’t get with the HRT, but I lose some of the ability to confidently block varied shots. With that in mind, the Viscaria is still noticeably more stable than blades like the ZLF. Of all the blades that I have tried, the HRT Rosewood and the Stiga Clipper are among the most stable. The Huaruite’s added stability made blocking a breeze and didn’t do too badly in the short game either. Some people prefer “flexy” / “touchy” blades for flips / pushes but I thought the stability of the Huaruite helped my short game a little bit.

Conclusion: Although I will not be leaving my Butterfly Viscaria for this blade, I was impressed by Huaruite’s product. They have certainly proven that they can create a great looking blade that also carries over many of the supposed attributes of the Stiga Rosewood. I found the HRT Huaruite Rosewood NCT V 5 to be a very stable, solid blade that pairs nicely with tacky Chinese rubbers like H3 and attacking short pips like Dr. Evil, but not so nicely with Tenergy 64 / Reactor Thunder or confusing pips like D. TecS. I would also note that in addition to having more flex than the Huaruite Roesewood, my Viscaria is also a bit faster. The HRT Rosewood NCT V 5 and the Stiga Rosewood NCT V 5 are rated as OFF but I would say it’s more like a true OFF-.

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