Menghai cake - real or fake?

What struck me as odd was the high price for a recent crop even from Menghai if it didn't include shipping. From the prices on TaoBao I wouldn't pay more than $10 for any two year old crop from any factory. I have a photo of this from TaoBao which is identified as the same 2003 Yi Wu Zheng Shan for $6. The factory wasn't mentioned. TaoBao sellers seem to be consistent to mention Menghai if the factory. I have one more picture with the wild tree, no factory, no price identified as "2004 cloth court attendant". The first couple of characters are different across the top. From convention "cloth court attendant" would be the name of the factory but I can't be sure in this case as I never saved the characters to indicate as such. That's all I know.

Jim

Gyorgy Sajo wrote:

$25.00 for a 2003 cake if it is from the actual factory is not pricey, and that's following China's and taiwan's market price at the moment. If you get one that's cheaper from the same year, and same factory, I'd be more cautious.

From the prices on TaoBao I

Jim, if that's you are paying, then the tea you are drinking that's over 2 years old for under USD$10 is questionable. Serious. If the market price determines it to be. say. $20 and you get it on Taobao for less than $10, and assuming the vendor on Taobao knows what the teas' maket value, I'd like to thoroughly examine his offers.

Erh, mistake. There's Menghai Factory There's produced in Menghai There's produced by so-and-so factory in Menghai Now you know what the teas you get from Taobao can be so cheap sometimes? They tell us "It's from Menghai" and we are overjoyed, forgetting that seabass is a fish but not all fishes are seabass... :")

I have one

Send a link and maybe I can tell you more?

Danny

Hi Gyorgy,

You have stated very clearly "I love this Puerh and that is clearly most important thing".

Is it that important then that whether the cake is a production from the Menghai Actual Factory? I feel that it is more important to like the tea and trust your tastebuds, the truth is a separate issue altogether.

I believe also that when one falls in love with Pu'er, "Definitve Answers" is an "attitude" one has to take with a pinch of salt, or else believe that there can sometimes be no definitive answers.

Enough of my rubbish. Care to email me privately who your authority is? :") Here's my 2 cent worth.

1. Your authority is not correct. This tea, coommonly called "The Big Green Tree", was commisioned by a Mr Ye tea merchant from Guangzhou, and accepted by Ms Yuan, the then new manager of Menghai Factory. The pressed cakes were about 7 shipments, and released into the market by year end 2000.

1. In 2003, Mr Ye again commissioned Menghai Factory to produce new shipments of this tea.

2. So actually, your cake may be from 2003. Both wrappers, flyers, and stickers between 1999 & 2003 productions are similar.

Now the confusions, the uncertainties.

1. Between 2000 & 2003, Menghai Factory produced several cakes with the same wrapper, and one (in 2002) with the Da Yi label, with the "cherry blossom" red logo on the front, instead of the tree.

1. Betweem 2000 & now, there are several small factories, especially after Menghai Factory was no longer state-owned, began producing their Yi Wu cakes, using the same tree logo. However, the tagline at the bottom printed the factories, if not the region (Menghai). Those without may probably be from the Kunming or other factories.

2. The sticker on the cake from M&J is Da Yi. The Da Yi logo sticker would have a similar wraper, while the Big Green Tree wrapper would have the "8 Zhong" sticker. The pictures on M&J don't gel.

1. Is it wild arbor leaves? No it isn't.

But importantly, I must stress again, is that you enjoy the tea, be it Da Yi or Big Green Tea.

Danny

Oops, amendments...

Sorry, Mr Ye commissioned the production in 1999, the production ended in

2000, the cakes were released that same year. The sticker had an additonal red oval stamp on the back...

In 2003 when Mr Ye comissioned for the production again, Ms Yuan had left Menghai Factory and was managing The Six Famous Tea Mountain Co.

I shall turn in for the night now before I turn out more incomplete info...

Danny

Hi Danny,

Thank you for your highly informative post!

Okay, then I reveal my hidden intention: I wished to order some more from another vendor, who would not take such high shipping fee. As I could not find a vendor who listed exactly the same cake, I had to send some queries around, and for that it was crucial to identify the cake. I thought it was a piece of cake, but it turned out to be a hard nut. :-)

Will do that.

After reading your enlightening post, I have examined the cake more closely, and I was suprised to detect that both the text of the wrapper and that of the sticker differs from the one pictured at M&J! And to make things even more complicated, the weight of the actual cake is 250 g (not 350 g); but I have been informed about it by the seller before ordering (and the actual price was only $18).

If you wish, we can take it offline, and I could send you the scanned images of both the wrapper and the sticker.

Thanks again, Gyorgy

I liked this tea enough that I bought a stack of it from mandjs. It's ageing really nicely (and fast), getting warmer and woodier with each year. As I'm not planning on selling them, I don't care too much if they're legit, just that they're really good.

I noticed that they don't have that characteristic Menghai taste that I've found in 7542 cakes of various vintages and their Jia Ji tuo chas. Looking at the leaf, it does seem to fit the description of a wild tea (as described by teahub and the teamaster blog).

Cheers,

Cameron

I managed to get a stack for about $120 shipped. Michael Ryan gave me a buy six get one free deal and I had them sent surface. Check his ebay store. He has this same cake for $17 last I checked.

Cheers,

Cameron

We have established offline that the cake M&J has online and the cake Gyorgy bought are not the same cake.

The cake is not from Menghai, so the next question of whether it is from Yi Wu also becomes questionable.

Production of "wild" tea leaves from Yi Wu at the moment is about 60 tons per year, inlcuding true wild arbor trees. I'll leave you to figure the amount of wild arbor leaves going into your cakes.

"Wild Grown Leaves" or "Wild Arbor Leaves" definition 1: leaves from wild trees; 2: leaves from plantations there were abandoned.

Danny

samarkand4329c073$ snipped-for-privacy@news.starhub.net.sg9/15/05 14: snipped-for-privacy@uk2.net

[Danny responding to Gyorky...]

Yes, well said indeed. Let taste reign (or is that rain?). Michael

Agreed Menghai can be used loosely. However on TaoBao the two year old prices for Menghai with the name and logo on the wrapper are still around $10. I use TaoBao as a benchmark for what is available and what it should cost. If somebody in the US wants to charge you $25 for something that cost $10 on TaoBao that is the way the market works. There is a dealer on Ebay, not previously mentioned here, whose costs are in line with TaoBao but limited selection. I choose to do business with them. That is also how the market works. Yeah on this side of the Pacific you'll pay more but I rather be in the ballpark than padding around in McCovey Cove waiting for a homerun from BB.

Jim

samarkand wrote:

Danny,

Could you share with us the specifics onhow you determined it wasnt a Mneghai cake? Enquiring minds want to know....

And... since it isnt Menghai but he clearly likes it how do you go about figuring out who actually made it in order to go after more.

Mike

no Michael, it;s rein...

haha!

Yeeeeehar! Ride them Cowboy!

Danny

Hi Mike,

I'll email you offline on this?

I don't want to be stoned again...

:")

Danny

Thank you! Yes, I also ordered my cakes from his ebay store, which meant $8 less for each cake and $3 less for the shipping of each one compared to his other site. It was just easier (shorter) to post the link to his other site. The images and the descriptions are (almost) the same.

$120 sounds like a good deal. How long was the actual shipping time?

Gyorgy

Cameron Lewis

Sounds very promising. How long time have you had them?

I do not know about your cakes, but mine are not from the Menghai factory. As mentioned in an earlier post, the text of the wrapper/sticker is different from the displayed ones. Danny was so kind to translate the wrappers of them both. The last line of the wrapper displayed on Michael's site says: "Produced by Menghai Factory of Yunnan Province", while on my actual cake is written: "Produced from Yi Wu Old Tea Leaves in Xishuangbanna of Yunnan Province", without mentioning the factory.

I am curious: Is your wrapper completely identical with the displayed ones? If you are interested, I can send you the scanned images of my wrapper/sticker.

Gyorgy

I can't read the Chinese, but character for character mine are identical to the ebay pictures.

So you ordered yours from mandj's ebay store but they weren't as pictured? Weird. I bought the cakes in 2003 and they've darkened quite a bit, and the taste has changed from a fairly rough green tasting tea to an increasingly mellow woody-date-plum tasting tea. The compression is loose but very even and I can easily flake off leaves without breaking out the pliers.

I've got some young Yiwu Zheng Shan ltd edition cakes from Six Famous that taste almost exactly like the probably-not-menghai when they were young. Guang has these on his site (though I got them from Yunnan Sourcing).

I think the shipping time was about a month.

Cameron

Hi Mike,

Have you received my mails? I have sent you a couple of mails in the past week, but I have not yet heard from you.

Thanks, Gyorgy

Sorry, domain registrar changes have disrupted things a bit. An email is on the way.

Mike Petro

(mirror in China)