Was "Treasure". I don't mean to hijack.

You mean there is a thieves market where everyone wants to buy aged pu'rh but can't because of the fraud. Why does it even exist if everybody knows that. If you aren't shopping with the locals then you are in the wrong place. I know it is a market and not retail. Price gouging is the norm but that is just the starting point. I just don't completely buy the story that the Chinese rip each other off because at some point the seller needs the buyer and vice versa. I suspect that the real problem with aged puer is that there is no market just speculation. If nobody thought a tea worth drinking so many years ago then only a fool would buy it today at higher prices. I see it in the cheap periodic refried oolongs presented as a better taste and more expensive. I'm fortunate to have a low humidity walkout basement that stays 67 spring,summer,fall,winter. Simply when tea is properly stored it holds up well in the long run. I haven't seen any that get better with age. I've got commercial tins of Poo Nih that are at least 30 years old. Yeah I remembered the 20 year old tuo but forgot about the Cantonese ones till a recent post. If memory serves me right I thought they tasted like medicine back then and a recent sample the same. It is just a fact I tend to hoard teas and the very first ones from way back when are still drinkable. At best the taste doesn't change with age. If you want the good stuff, buy a recent crop, save your money and let someone else invest in a lifetime warranty humidity controled George Foreman rotisserie grill where the only change in taste comes from the aged buds in your mouth. If you like teas by the kilo then pu'rh is a good bargain. It is a great way to decorate your house. Like any compressed teas I'll concede that the exterior protects the interior but no real change in taste. I have teas that can't be replaced and have a short eulogy when they're gone but that doesn't make them expensive. I've got dozens of 200g US Twinings tins before they downsized to 100g before they closed their Greensboro packing plant. A while back you could get them for a buck each in the discount stores if you could find them. I wished the speculators would show up so I can retire. Pretty girls can sell anything even bad food. I enjoy your field reports.

Jim

Mydnight wrote:

See, but one can't assume that because someone is Chinese that they know jack about tea. A good example of this is tonight I had a group of my students come over to my house and drink tea (age ranges from

Is there a market where people rip each other off....yes, that would be Fangcun or any tea market or any teashop. I can only think of one place around here where you can buy real aged pu'er and it's from a guy that is a collector; probably 99 percent, and Seb will agree with me on this one, of the pu'er on the market is not older than 2 or 3 years. Basically, the only way you can keep from being ripped off is to have a good knowledge about the tea that you want to buy; knowing the boss also helps.

It's just so hard to explain...damnit, hop on a plane and hang out with me for an afternoon or something and I'll show you! hehe.

I can't really believe if I'm a tea drinker in China I have to go to the market and get ripped off. From what I understand so far I'll save money on airfare and spend it on shops in my Chinatown. I previously mentioned a grocery that I thought went out of business but has been completely remodeled with a grand opening soon. Now the store at the other end of the commercial strip will have to do the same. Hopefully it translates into more tea choices but more likely higher prices. I'm watching a segment on CCTV last night about 'green cards'. Apparently that is as close as you can come to being a citizen with all the rights of a natural born citizen because they don't offer citizenship to foreigners even if you are an expatriate returning. I guess they still reserve the right to kick you out anytime for anything. I'm watching a woman who I think was American and moved to China in 47 to join the revolution at the behest of a wife of Chairman Mao before they closed the border claim she was Chinese and not a 'laowai' (more than once) and she had her green card to prove it. Another woman was a French writer on Chinese culture with a green card drank her tea from the spout of a clay teapot. The commentator said she knew more about tea than most.

Jim

Mydnight wrote:

...I delete me...

...I delete you...

...again...

I said, you don't have to, but you will if you don't know what you're doing.

You can't blame the market if there is a fool behind you willing to part with his money. Still the seller recognizes repeat customers so the price is adjusted irregardless of knowledge. Market places are the same all over the world. The same applies to my local farmer's market.

Jim

Mydnight wrote:

Can we stop now before this turns into a flame war? I just wanted to know what I had bought, and now I do. Mydnight, you didn't hijack this thread, that was a perfect follow up question after I posted my description of how my puer tasted. So, back to the original question. "Anybody else notice the scratchy feeling besides me in relating to wet vs. dry storage techniques?" And remember, The nice thing about opinions is that everybody has one, and they arn't all the same. Can you imagine how boring the world would be if we all had the same opinon? Marlene

I say again, and I don't want to start a flame-war or whatever it's called, the markets here are quite different than what you're used to in the west. You WILL get cheated if you don't know what you're doing. Ask anybody that's over here that has actually tried to buy tea at any teashop, and you'll get the same answer. Most given shops at market aren't interested in repeat customers anyway, they are interested in wholesale purchasers.

See above about my description of Fangcun. In about 10 different shops, we got different prices for the exact same tea; the tea being low grade Bing Cha and nothing else.

Yet on the other hand, I've come across Chinese in mainland who knows what a Na Tie (Latte) is but thinks oolong is a green tea. Just as the best pizza may not be found in Italy, I think the situation is the same here. Most Laowai are more enthralled with the culture of tea than the Chinese - one is learning a new culture with the wide wondering eyes of a child, the other has been steeped in it for so long it couldn't be bothered to embrace the culture.

Marlene, how do you yourself tell the difference (when you buy it) between wet and dry storage puer? I know I've heard of some unscrupulous people speeding up the aging of some puer by spraying it with water, but I don't know how I would tell that on sight or taste. If I knew where to taste some definitive wet storage puer then I'd be more able to address your question but as it is, I don't know the difference.

Melinda

This was actually Mydnight's question. I've never had wet storage pu (or have and didn't know it). Although samarkand says that this may very well be wet storage. Others are far more qualified to answer that. :) Marlene

Mike Petro

One way to tell is if the outside of the brick, tuo has a muddied appearance instead of a good pressed look. Also, when drinking the tea, after about the 4th or 5th steep, you'll get a scratchy, uncomfortable feeling in the back of your throat.

Another way to tell, is when you are breaking off some of the tea, it doesn't appear to be very crisp; it just sort of comes off in a huge clump without much of a sound.