Did I buy real Puer?

You did buy real pu'er, but it is impossible that it is 7 years old if you only paid 70RMB for it. No matter what shop/factory you go to, unless you know the people there, they will always lie and say that their pu'er is old. I frequent the Fangcun tea market in Guangzhou, basically to drink tea for free and see if I can find a good deal, and I very often drink "20 year old" pu'er...you can easily find such "20 year old" pu'er by going to a new shop. Chances are that you bought a

2004 or 2005 bing that's probably worth 5-15 yuan for 70; not that big of a deal. If it is really Menghai, it would be a little more expensive. Hell, at least you didn't pay like 100 bucks for it.

Or, the other old trick in the book is to have the sample that's good quality or a little old and then the sell the buyer a different tea. It has been said that even many shop bosses themselves have never drank real aged pu'er before or wouldn't know the difference if they did. It's hard to find real aged pu'er.

As for your description of the pu'er being "floral," I'm not sure what to make of that. Most pu'er is rather earthy; some describe it as a dirty flavor. Regardless of age, grade, or whatever else denotation tea is classified by, if you think the taste is good, consider it a good buy for 70 kuai.

Sorry, forgot to quote:

You did buy real pu'er, but it is impossible that it is 7 years old if you only paid 70RMB for it. No matter what shop/factory you go to, unless you know the people there, they will always lie and say that their pu'er is old. I frequent the Fangcun tea market in Guangzhou, basically to drink tea for free and see if I can find a good deal, and I very often drink "20 year old" pu'er...you can easily find such "20 year old" pu'er by going to a new shop. Chances are that you bought a

2004 or 2005 bing that's probably worth 5-15 yuan for 70; not that big of a deal. If it is really Menghai, it would be a little more expensive. Hell, at least you didn't pay like 100 bucks for it.

Or, the other old trick in the book is to have the sample that's good quality or a little old and then the sell the buyer a different tea. It has been said that even many shop bosses themselves have never drank

real aged pu'er before or wouldn't know the difference if they did. It's hard to find real aged pu'er.

As for your description of the pu'er being "floral," I'm not sure what to make of that. Most pu'er is rather earthy; some describe it as a dirty flavor. Regardless of age, grade, or whatever else denotation tea is classified by, if you think the taste is good, consider it a good buy for 70 kuai.

It doesn't make any economic sense for free tastings of 'aged' puer. If it did then everyone would be tasting and not buying just because of the price. I see the new 2005 Menghai 300g+ on TaoBao for 20 yuan. I've also seen some reports of 2003 factory productions sold out such as White Dragon. I think you could buy a five year old Menghai for $10. Easily ten year old around $20. I think a green or silver bud beeng could be described as 'floral'. Have you seen any indications of the reports for new prices going through the roof because of demand?

Jim

Mydnight wrote:

Every Puer that I've ever tasted except for this one has been very earthy. This however was not earthy at all and was actually sweet.

UPDATE: I brewed up the puer he sold me this morning and it is definitely a different tea. It is slightly earthy, but not too bad. It is nowhere near as good as the one I tried in the store, but at least it is drinkable and I learned something in the process.

Alex

Hi Alex,

Let's put the question on age aside first.

Look at the wrapper, is there a 'Cha' logo? What is the colour of the logo?

Look at the tea itself. Does it look light green? Dark green? Brown? Dark brown? Black?

If there's a sticker stuck on the cake, take a look at it. Is there a small line of wormy characters on the lower right of the sticker?

How many characters are there on the sticker?

Is there a logo on the sticker? What does it look like?

Smell the center of the cake, where the 'crater' is. What does the smell reminds you of?

Now smell the edge of the cake. What does the smell reminds you of?

When you said you sampled the tea today, how did you break the cake? Did you broke off the edge, or from the centre?

Does it break easily or so you have to hack it?

What does the brewed leaves look like?

Danny

I am assuming that by Cha logo you mean the chinese character for tea. I used babelfish to get this, and yes it is in the center of the cake. It is green.

Dark brown.

No sticker, but there is a piece of paper insider the wrapper

Dirt

The same but a bit lighter

He used a pocket knife to pry off a piece from the edge

I used the knife, so I'll test next time. Using the knife produced a lot of dust particles though.

Dark brown with a bit of sediment at the bottom of the cup (after being decanted). However it is even in color and doesn't stratify towards the bottom.

Alex

Hi Alex,

Yours is probably a small factory production, new but heavily stored in a high and humid enclosed environment. The dirt smell in the centre and the edge of the tea seems to point to this. When the leaves are brewed, do they look anything close to leaves? Or do they just looked 'charred'? If you take up a piece and rub between your fingers, do they crumple easily? If they do and looked charred, then it confirms the wet storage speculation.

The lack of the sticker is mostly an indication of small factory production, some might say that it is produced in the Guangzhou region, but I don't think that's where you bought the tea, right?

Your tea is a cooked pu'er, not one that's cooked naturally through post fermentation and oxidation, but one that is kept in wet storage and aged rapidly. Point is, there is nothing wrong with this, unless it isn't what you have asked for in the first place.

The floral note from a pu'er will come from it being produced as a raw cake and then aged nicely over a long period of time.

To remove the 'dirt' smell on the cake, leave the cake with the wrapper on on a shelf away from the sunlight and in an airy, clean area. Then remember it again 6 months later. It might improve then...

Danny

To Spacecow, are you a Chinese？ Sounds you like a native Chinese.

切勿. I defer too others for specifics on the Chinese language and customs. I can handle a simple phrase using Google and Bablefish but that's it. The only Chinese I know I learned from reading tea tins and recently 饼 wrappers. I hoping that Google Groups will honor my unicodes with your utf-8 post.

Jim

hanry wrote:

tourists frequently get ripped off at those

I know next to nothing about Puer, so I let others address that. However, I believe the answer to the above question in China is "YES". I have several close friends who have spent a lot of time in China, and one who worked as a teacher for years in Xian. My understanding from them is that it is standard practice for merchants to overcharge or otherwise try to bamboozle foreigners. In fairness, this is probably true in many other countries as well.

tourists >frequently get ripped off at those

It's not just tourists. It's pretty much anyone, including Chinese, that aren't up to snuff when it comes to knowledge on pu'er; also including unknowledgeable shop bosses. I've been to some shops that the bosses had no idea what they actually had.