Ah Danny I think you have touched on something that some of the more seasoned puerh drinkers have forgotten. The average person just wants good tea, they don't give a damn about which batch from what year from what factory sanctioned by which Tea Master. It can be very daunting for the newcomer to puerh to have to decipher all of this collector mumbo-jumbo, they just want to drink some good puerh. My advise is to latch onto to someone who already drinks puerh and let them guide you through the different styles. As Danny says, let your nose and tongue be your guide. Leave the collector mumbo jumbo to us obsessive compulsive types.
Yes, I would love to see this. Another idea that might be ready for prime time would be to translate some of the better texts into English. Or author a book in English. I would belly up to the table with my cash immediately.
Mike Petro
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"In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed." Samuel Johnson, 1775, upon finishing his dictionary.
What about Michael from mandjs.com - is he trustworthy enough? I have gotten some Menghai cakes and Xia Guan tuochas from him. I do no think that his prices are particularly high (what might somewhat contradict your first warning), and I (a puerh newbie) find the quality to be quite high.
MandJs would not be my first choice as they are higher priced than some of the other Chinese sources when you add shipping into the equation. The young teas I have gotten from them have been authentic but I have had a bad experience with some aged tea from them. My recommendation would be for you to check out
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or
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and compare their prices to MandJ and be sure to include shipping in the total cost calculation. These 2 sites are good for newbies as they are honest and sell only authentic teas. There are cheaper sites but I would only recommend them to seasoned puerhites as you have to be careful because if you dont know your tea you might wind up with the fake stuff.
What I was talking about in warning #2 was that the factories themselves have raised the wholesale price of their teas to ridiculously high levels. You will start to see this affect retail pricing as the vendors deplete their stock and go to buy more at the wholesale level. Consequently, since these teas are commanding such a high price the number of forgeries has also increased.
Mike Petro
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"In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed." Samuel Johnson, 1775, upon finishing his dictionary.
[Mike] You are quite correct Jing but it is also easy for you, Seb, and Danny to say this because all you have to do is walk down to the market and select from hundreds of puerhs from dozens of vendors. It is MUCH more difficult for the Western consumer.
[Jing] I agree that we do have more chance and easier access to the tea and tea source. However, we have a lot more fakes to confuse us since we have a bigger market and also the goods are more frequently changing. If we don't stick to the basic and keep on updating with people who have the knowledge, we will get lost easier as well. Sure, we are lucky compare to people in the West but see it this way when someone comes on google (or other forums where we are) and question about pu erh, we are here among with others and we do share all we learn for free. So, sources are available for people in the west somehow. I won't hold back any info that I know and we will dig for what I don't know as far as I can and we share the result.
[Mike] The real problem for the American consumer is identifying a trustworthy vendor... [ snip]
[Jing] A trustworthy vendor is really important to start the pu erh journey for newcomers. However, this is not only true for puerh. We are facing the same condition with most of other teas. Some vendors are selling a Mao Xie as a Tie Guan Yin, or a simply Jian Cha as the green tea king Tai Ping Hou Kui...How someone can tell the difference between the two if he hasn't tried the real thing, hence the purpose of knowing the character of a tea. Without knowing the character of a particular tea one would be paying for something that it isn't what it should be.
[Mike] I have gotten to the point where I will seldom buy Menghai or Xia Guan online anymore because 1) there are so many fakes and it is difficult to weed them out by just looking at a picture on a website especially if the vendor is trying to hide it, 2) both of these factories have raised their prices so high that they just arent worth pursuing any more considering the risk of getting a forgery.
[Jing] Same for other puerh teas. No doubt there is tons of fake Menghai or Xia Guan puerh out there. But, some pu erh wrapped with lovely and attractive wrappers produced from small and new factories (or using brand under old famous factories) claims to be from Yiwu or others famous places. If you don't know what the character of a Yiwu, Ban Zhang, or Si Mao tea is, you might end up buying some puerh teas that is compressed with Lin Cang, Mengku, Jing Hong area tea, or even tea leaves from Sichuan or Guizhou provinces. And honestly, if you are paying for this type of mass produced tea but advertised as a limited produced Yiwu tea or a "thousand old wild tea tree", it is way too expensive for what the products really is. Personally, there is nothing more than a forgery with this type of products as well as the fakes of the Menghai or Xia Guan tea factory.
[Mike] Quite frankly when someone new to puerh asks I seldom recommend Menghai or Xia Guan simply because it opens up a can of worms trying to ensure they know enough to get the real thing.
[Jing] Let's look at it this way, why so many people try to fake Menghai and Xia Guan teas? There must be a reason. Due to their long history and rich experience in producing puerh tea that started in 40's, due to the fact that they have fixed tea sources/providers, large tea farms/mountains that provide them tea leaves, they are able to produce tea at a certain standard of quality with its particular character.
[Mike] I generally recommend some of the smaller factories that are a quarter of the price and are not big enough for anyone to try to forge them yet. I also recommend that they buy from one of the vendors located in China as their odds of getting good tea are much better that way. Stay away from Menghai and Xia Guan, particularly on Ebay, unless you know the vendor very well.
[Jing] However, I am not saying that only Menghai and Xia Guan tea factory produce good tea but not others. There is a couple of young factories are trying to give good products. But compares to a lot of the new and small factories with limited compressing skill and technique, which even doesn't have their own piece of land to plant tea trees, which has to gather small quantity of tea leaves from plenty of different areas, the quality of each production won't be even. To get a good piece of tea from these factories really depends on your luck, especially when you buy them from internet since you can't touch, smell, or taste them.
So, if you are sure the vendor that you are dealing with is trustworthy enough, personally, I would recommend going for some Menghai or Xia Guan teas even if their price is higher. But, at least you get what you paid for and you are sure you will get the same quality one if you want to buy some more later. I won't say to someone new to pu erh to start with some new fashion "puerh" such as silver needle puerh for example. The reason why, is that over 90% of this type of puerh use leaves that are from different tea tree race from Sichuan, Guizhou province instead from Yunnan. In most of the case, you are not paying for what it should be. Second, the reason why you like or want to try puerh, besides the fact of the health benefit, it is because its taste is like no other tea, it is puerh, just different.
[Danny] For investment, one must really know the history behind the product...how about a master class, Jing, on the what, how, and when on
collectible pu'ers?
[Jing] euh...history...long, isn't it? Danny, maybe you can pull out something to start and we fill up what we know into it? Let's build up the puzzle! Should be fun... ;-)
Jing, I think you are missing my point. You are recommending that we as consumers learn the character of the tea so we can make good buying decisions. Your advice is great for someone in the East, but it is very difficult for someone in the West. I agree that it is the "ideal" thing to do, but for the reality is that for most of us in the Western world it almost impossible to do UNTIL we find a trustworthy vendor.
YOU can go to market and taste 10 different teas BEFORE you buy a single one, YOU can then pass on the ones that don't taste right, YOU can present a tea to a Tea Master for his opinion. WE must take a chance based on a grainy photograph and a 3 sentence description on some website. It may be good tea or it might be garbage, we wont know for sure until AFTER we have paid our money and it is delivered a couple of weeks later EVEN if we have some prior knowledge of the character we are looking for. Someone is the East can learn more about tea character in one year than us Westerners can learn in a lifetime.
Put it this way, would you buy Gold or Silver or Diamonds over the Internet? I bet you would only do it if you REALLY knew the vendor well. It is the same for us with tea, and tea can be almost as expensive. It is ONLY after WE develop a relationship with a trustworthy vendor that we can begin to understand the character of the tea and trust that we will get is truly what is being advertised. Until then we must take our chances which means spending lots of money and buying lots of overpriced garbage tea. For example I know what an aged Yellow label should taste like, that doesn't mean I can get it even if I pay handsomely. I have to trust someone like you or Daniel or Linda, and it costs a lot of money to learn who you can trust and who you cannot. If I buy a 70s yellow label off of any old vendor I see on Ebay I will almost certainly get ripped off, but until I have tasted an authentic one how do I even know what I am supposed to be looking for. I see newbies buying artificially aged 12yo teas thinking they are great and I know for a fact they are not authentic. Yet the newbie thinks they are great because they do taste good to him and he doesn't know what a real 12yo should taste like. So now the newbie thinks this fake tea is what he should compare other teas to and he would probably never know a real 12yo if it bit him on the tush.
I know you and Seb sell authentic tea, including old tea, but that is only after years of buying puerh elsewhere, and then developing a relationship with you guys. If you were the first vendor I went to how would I even know that you are selling the real thing. You said you openly share information, I know this to be true, however how does a NEWBIE know that you are more accurate than the guy on ebay selling whatever he can get his hands on and advertising it as being whatever he was told it was? The truth is that he wont! There is so much misinformation out there that it boggles the mind.
There is a real need for English language books so that someone who was willing to do the research would have a resource other than someone who is trying to make a living off of selling the stuff. Virtually every current source of information has a vested interest in trying to sell you something. Hence it is difficult to know who to believe and who not to. The poor newbie has to trust his instinct, and maybe the advise of some others who have already tread that road, before they can really know which vendor to trust. Only then can they begin to learn the character of the different teas.
The price of admission to learn the character of different puerhs is still quite high, and even then simply knowing the character is not enough.....
Mike Petro
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"In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed." Samuel Johnson, 1775, upon finishing his dictionary.
Strange. In my experience (exclusively in the West) Mao Xie is much harder to find than TGY. Of course, if much of the TGY isn't real TGY, then ... what?
If you don't know the specific name of this tea (mao xie), it will mainly sold under the name "Anxi se zhong (includes mao xie, ben shan, mei zhan etc.)" The Mao Xie and Ben Shan is easily advertised as Tie Guan Yin over here as well to tea drinkers (some buyers as well) that can't really tell the difference. Or another way, some sellers mixed the Mao Xie or/and Ben Shan with Tie Guan Yin to allow to increase the floral fragrance of the Tie Guan Yin, therefore, the cost of tea is also much cheaper. So, if much of the TGY isn't real TGY, then...you are not paying for what it should be if you buy it.
Mike, I understand that it is harder for western people to learn puerh teas over the Internet without being able to sample the tea and not having resources in hands. Even though there are people sharing information on forum it is still a hard task. Buying, without knowing any basic of the thing is risky, for anything. Finding honest vendors (or even vendor that knows what they are selling) can be hard. Nonetheless, it is possible for people who use the Internet and forum like Rec.food. They can meet other pu erh drinkers or pu erh fans that can tell them where to go to find the "real" pu erh.
But, let's take the case of someone coming to google saying something like "I have decided to give a try to pu erh, anybody have suggestions?" And let's also try to forget about the fakes for the Menghai and Xia Guan away since there are trustworthy vendors as you mentioned.
Now what is the best choice for someone like this person, pay more to get some pu erh from reputable factories who have skills and experience and try to respect the tradition as much as they can. Or, pay less to buy some teas that are simply advertising under the famous flame such as "wild, ancient, yiwu..." and in most of the case are not?
What would be the better choice for a newbie that wants to give a try to puerh tea?
All of those assumptions above only work IF the newbie finds an honest AND knowledgeable vendor, which are somewhat rare to begin with, but for conversation sake lets assume they did find one. An honest AND knowledgeable vendor will weed out the fake wild, ancient, yiwu, just as easily as they will weed out the fake Menghai. That same honest vendor can easily recommend less expensive yet authentic puerh than Menghai. This knowledge, and expectation of good advice, is part of why the newbie selects that particular vendor, otherwise they might as well just take their chances on eBay.
I would have agreed with you about Menghai 2-3 years ago when Menghai was only a little more expensive that the others, but Menghai, and Xia Guan have become the most expensive young puerh on the market. If the newbie has a knowledgeable vendor they can find many other very good puerhs that are less than half of the price of Manghai. For example Six Famous Mountain, or Haiwan, or Dadugang are all much less expensive than Menghai. There are many good and authentic teas among them.
Assuming the newbie has found such a vendor then I would still recommend one of the lessor known, but authentic, factories rather than buying the most expensive stuff. You never know, many people do not even like puerh after trying it so why buy the most expensive stuff straight off. I do NOT think the best choice is the top of the line most expensive factory until they decide that they really like the genre and want to explore the better varieties.
Would you recommend the most expensive French vineyard to someone who has never drank wine? Wouldn't it be better to offer a much less expensive but still high quality wine until they start to develop an appreciation for wine? After all some people would prefer beer.
Menghai will continue to raise their prices as long as there is a demand for their tea. I, for one, will speak my protest with my wallet and buy 3 cakes of 6FTM instead of one cake of Menghai.
Mike Petro
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"In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed." Samuel Johnson, 1775, upon finishing his dictionary.
There is enough choice in the Western markets for the beginner to get started. There is nothing wrong with the cheap stuff in Chinatown or the Net. Even the 'expensive' $30 300g beengs are ballpark for gourmet tea shoppe prices $10/100g. I think the only learning curve to sort the nomenclature and styles. The taste takes care of itself. It's your tastebuds. You can buy different Darjeelings from different estate and they taste almost the same but not quite. So how much time and money are you going to spend just too differentiate? I think the expensive aged most likely fake argument is for the collectors but I think the plethora of affordable recent versions is even more apropos for the beginner. If you want choice learn some Chinese and buy from TaoBao or Ebay China. If I was going to recommend tea to a novice the pu would be the last suggestion.
I agree, all those assumptions only work IF there are honest AND knowledgeable vendors. However, we know they exist, then for those newbies who want to try there first puerh from these two factories, which is considered the best, they have some places to go to get their teas or get advice of other factories besides these two.
My point for the factories/products is more on the "educational" side for tea drinkers, especially for newbies. As giving an advice, is better to give a best sample of the topic that you are talking about, so for the people who first get to know this thing can get a clear idea. If just to start and get the first impression of the puerh tea, why not spend a bit more but be sure about what you are getting?
Maybe later on, after having a better idea of what the hell is puerh tea, having more experience, then can go for some other factories and try to test your taste of puerh? But without any proper example, nobody can tell anything about what they don't really know.
Of course, like what you said there are some other factories that are reputed besides the Xia Guan and Meng Hai tea factories. But you cannot agree with that they are the best to be the very first sampling for newbies. That is why I recommend them first as "educational" purchase.
Like for anything, there are some people who put budget first before choices and I respect that, so if they find the tea from those two factories too expensive even they like them, I tell them to look for factory like feng qing, ling cang, nan jian or newer factories like xing hai or Haiwan, which I was already suggesting a year ago. But with most of the other new factories (which i already explained why), I have to say, Mike, unless the newbies have tried as much as different puerh like experienced puerh drinkers, they will never pick out which are the good products among all these charming wrappers and beautiful definitions.
I agree, these two factories have came through a "crazy" rising period. However, the "good news" is the price is quite stable for now according to the first hand dealers that we know. Price is high for their products but it is also because their products are better. It is like evrything, pay more for the better.
However, for now, a lot of new factories which have gained their name during the "pricing issue" with the MH and XG tea factory have also raised their prices right after that as well. And from some of the pricing researching, some of the products of the Dadugang or the 6FM are selling even more expensive than the products of the MH and XG tea factory. So I think the price rising is not only with the two major factories but they just started the game first because of the demand.
For me, authentic has two definition, one is the products are really produced from THE factory. Second is the products are really what they are claimed. Miss any of these two and the tea is not authentic anymore. But we all know, the real authentic will always cost you more. Like what we say in Chinese: good thing is never cheap.
Anyway, you can still go and hunt for any puerh that attrats you according to the eye, it is a choice and it is fun. However, if you didn't like the puerh tea and the worse thing is, unluckily, you bought a piece of MH or XG tea with higher price for you tasting...Well, what I can say? You still had a chance to taste the best tea of the puerh catagory. And you will have a better reason to annouce that: well, this tea is really crap even though i got the best one... ;"p
Just because "we" (you and I) know that honest vendors exist does not mean that the newbie will know. I was a newbie once and I got EXTREMELY frustrated trying to find a knowledgeable and honest vendor, I wasted a lot of money on garbage puerh and I am not a fool. That frustration was what prompted me to start my website so that I could share what I learned with others. Even if a newbie comes into this newsgroup, and most newbies will not even know about RFDT unless they are fairly computer savvy, how do they know who to listen to? I may have some credibility with the old timers but a newbie wont know me from Ronald McDonald until they happen to visit my website. If they listen to Space(d) Cowboy they will wind up in Chinatown or TaoBao, if they listen to others they might wind up at Upton or Rishi or Hou De or eBay. How do they know who to listen too? Some of the vendors who gave me less than fair deals have participated in this very group so if the newbie is a cautious consumer they will not trust what the vendors say either, at least not until they gain some experience. So it is not so easy for the newbie to know who to listen to even if they do make it to this newsgroup.
I respect you opinion but I have a different opinion. I would not recommend someone's first wine to be the best wine on the market, same with puerh, especially considering the widespread forgery issue. I am a frugal person and I would steer them towards something less expensive but almost as good, then if they liked it I would introduce them to the rest of the genre.
Now that's when I might recommend the Menghai. Once they "know" that they like puerh in general is when I would introduce them to the more expensive stuff.
I disagree, there are many puerhs that are almost as good or even better as Menghai. For example the Haiwan or one of the 6FTM cakes on your site would be an excellent place to start tasting raw puerh. They are definitely good enough puerh for someone to decide if the like puerh or not and they are 30-50% less expensive than the current Menghai stuff.
Now this is along the lines of what I am trying to say. I am not recommending just "ANY" new factory but I do feel that a responsible vendor could easily recommend something from a smaller factory that is good and authentic.
Menghai started raising their prices when speculation about being acquired by Bowin corporation started back in 2004. The collectors started snatching up Mengahi teas speculating that they would rise in value because of the change in ownership of the factory. The factory saw the demand and seized the opportunity to raise their prices. Menghai prices were always a "little" higher than other factories but not by much. They more than doubled their prices in a years time yet their expenses did not double. Where I come form they call that "gouging". It is like the gas Station in my town that raised their price of gas by a dollar a gallon when the attack on 9/11 happened. Their wholesale prices didn't go up, every other Gas Station stayed the same price. This station was just being greedy, I have never gone back to that Gas Station since. In my opinion Menghai got greedy and I show my disapproval by buying my young tea from other factories.
Yes, Menghai started the price hike, and just like the Airlines or the Gas Stations, once one factory went up the others did too. Notably 6FTM has dramatically risen in price in the last 2 years. Many of their cakes are simply just too expensive to consider if you intend to drink them. They are slick marketers and try to make a product that attracts collectors by only making limited numbers of them. For example this new
1780th Anniversary of Kong Ming box set with 2 bings, 2 tuos, and 1 brick is way too expensive to ever drink, it is only for the collectors and speculators. Too rich for my blood!
You are quite right. There is a lot of misleading and false advertising by some of the puerh factories; this is in addition to the outright forgeries. In the USA they do sell forgeries and lie sometimes but the vendors are punished when they get caught. They could be sued and fined and even put in Jail for telling these lies and selling these forgeries. Unfortunately China has not started to enforce "truth in advertising" laws yet. Consequently they loose credibility in the eyes of the Western World since we know we must question the authenticity of everything.
I have also found that the authentic goods do not necessarily cost more since the forgeries are often sold at the same price as the authentic teas. Now you might get a different price in the markets but they will often try to sell a laowai fake tea at a full price, especially in the Tourist areas.
Seb, or Jing, (I am not sure who is really driving this thread?) I know you guys really like Menghai and Xia Guan a lot but they are NOT the only game in town. They are indeed very reputable but they have cashed in on that reputation to the point where I think they are now often overpriced. There are other choices that now make a lot of sense when you consider quality AND price-point.
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