www.aromaserene.com

[Jason questions the authenticity of Aaron Fischer's aromaserene website prices and teas, etc.

Jason, don't forget us dabblers. It's our group here too, you know. A lot of spiritual merit accrues to dabbling. It's good sometimes to remember that the more we know the less room we have left to learn. Michael

Hi Oahspe,

I have been sitting back quietly to watch how all of this unfolded. May I ask a few questions? First is "Oahspe" your real name, it seems more like an email abbreviation than a proper name, I prefer to know who I am conversing with and you have always signed your name as "Aroma Serene" which tells me nothing. Please see some other questions and comments interspersed below.

I assume you are speaking about the 1960s Guang Yun Gong (GYG) cakes based on your description. Rest assured that those of us who are initiated would never pay the $1,200 that Generation Tea is charging. Using them as an example does not do justice to your argument. The typical price we see is around $600, which is inline with the price you mention since typical US retail outlets charge 100% profit margins.

You have made several mentions of the 858tea.com museums. I have to add that the locals in Kunming have shunned the Museum that this same outfit opened in Kunming. The people in Kunming are resentful of a Taiwanese businessman capitalizing on their culture by opening a museum in the Puerh homelands. I know many people in the puerh business in Kunming and it seems that most feel this way and have never even visited the Taiwanese Puerh Museum in Kunming.

I agree with you here, far too many vendors have gotten way too loose with their vintage claims. It is becoming common that they simply quote a decade rather than a specific year. What is even more uncomfortable is that these teas are often 10 years younger than what is being quoted.

Another reason that Taiwan has a lot of older puerhs is because many entire productions were contracted by Taiwanese businessmen. For example there were many entire Xia Guan productions that went directly to Taiwan and were never made available on mainland China.

Did you guys send me a private email about a month ago inviting me to come to Taiwan?

Please consider that the skepticism you are encountering is quite natural in an environment where so many fakes and scams abound. I have personally heard so many bull***t stories from people trying to sell me ridiculously overpriced tea that I, and others like me, are quite skeptical when someone offers teas at prices below the norm. Stories about cases of tea forgotten in some guys attic for the last 30 years and now we will sell you these cakes for ONLY $700, then the cakes turn out to be 90s wet storage cakes or even shu cakes. I have personally heard many such stories, and seen so many scams, that virtually every offer from an unknown source is automatically looked upon with suspicion. This business is so full of crooks, shills, and greedy opportunists that when someone jumps in making remarkably good sounding offers you have to expect this skepticism, it is quite natural.

Perhaps you could join in on some of our puerh related conversations rather than just the marketing ones. You would find much less skepticism if you gained credibility with us by participating and sharing your knowledge BEFORE you jump in trying to sell something.

I will be emailing you privately later today so that I may purchase some samples. There is an old saying in the Tea Business that goes something like this "the Tea never lies". So I will allow your Tea to speak for itself.....

-- Mike Petro

----- Original Message ----- From: "Oahspe" Newsgroups: rec.food.drink.tea Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 12:58 AM Subject: Re:

Dear Erik, or the people behind AromaSerene

& you have been negative and judegmental in think us so too. I don't disregard people who are spiritual, but it does irk me a great deal when you do this 'in the face' type of hard selling, not only here, but of all places, in my blog. That is what I would consider inconsiderate and callously wanton. Please understand that my blog is a place for us to talk and share our feelings about tea, not a convenient vehicale for your advertising. The accusations levelled against you may not deman your effort, but it demeans your quest for spirituality by disregarding other people's space.

Thank you for citing Da You Tea museum, but it does nothing to credit your claim. I was perhaps the 1st to question you on the 1965 Meng Hai Tea Factory brick. You only cited ambiguities. Nobody is accusing you of not selling 100% authentic tea, but it is the year of production that I'm questioning. I believe in the Chi energy of Tea, I'm sure there are many of us who have experienced it in one way or other in our sampling of teas; I know also that if the person is highly tuned, he is able to tell the production age, the type of leaves, and even the persons who picked the leaves, as the energy from these are transferred to the tea as well. Hence my queries and disbelief that you do not know the grades of the leaves, after the long talk about meditations. Satisfy us, tell us more about the history of this 1965 Meng Hai Tea Factory brick.

As the gourd strainer, I think what Mydnight meant is that the sieve portion is plastic, am I right Mydnight? The rest is dried gourd. In my travels I have seen this item commonly in Korea. Even the knots on your gourd strainer look Korean. It is a nice little item I must say. I'll remember to pick up some in Renshi Dong...

Danny

I should add also that the people at AromaSerene has unwittingly published a private correspondent between my friend and them on their Forum, without first asking for permission to do so. If people on such high spiritual grounds are so insensitive and inconsiderate, I shudder to think of their former earthier selves. Please devote more hours to your rainbow leprechuan tea meditations, methink thou seriously require it!

Your lengthy condescending discourse on the pu'er on your forum serves only to further demean your knowledge and ignorance. The people behind the art of cooking pu'er are no longer with the Meng Hai Tea Factory, in fact, the people who worked at the factory prior ro 1980 are no longer there. So who did you speak to?

There are also many bull***t on your forum that you passed as explanation but to those in the know, laughable. Your concept on raw and cooked is at best perfunctory but inadequate, your timeline on the production completely dubious, and I still wonder why doesn't the cha chi tell you any better. & despite all the talk about spiritual and bringing good to the world of tea, your last paragraph is amazing in that you do not fail to edge in the opportunity to throw a sales pitch.

Perhaps you have not realized this, but so far what you guys have done only serve to make us judgemental of you and your marketing tactics, and making a mockery of Chinese social ethics and spirituality.

Danny

That's a bunch of rubbish. Please tell me why you have some Tie Guan Yin (150g), I think it was, listed on your site for 150 bucks then? This year's TGY high grade went for about 110 bucks or around 900-1200 RMB. I know...I was here.

Hardly. We are quite good at picking up spam for what it is. And, that's spam. I was not talking about your spirituality concerning tea whatsoever. I myself feel a certain centering when I am making tea for my friends, but I don't charge them 150 bucks to come and enjoy tea with me. If you want to hang out and drink tea for 6 hours sometime with me and my pals over here in Dongguan, you're welcome to come.

Yes, it is. Especially if your sole purpose of doing business online is to enlighten people into your spiritual tea garbage. Don't you find that just slightly, ever so slightly, contradictory?

Plastic bags are expensive? Ever hear of ziplock? I've been to many a good tea vendor that ziplocked me 1 jin of their tea...they didn't charge me an arm and a leg for it.

You mean 'qi'? I appreciate in tea what people that know how to drink Chinese tea appreciate. That is, hui gan...xiang wei....ko gan...you know, those ancient Chinese things that have kept them drinking tea for centuries that basically boils down to one phrase: it tastes good.

And, who says I don't? Perhaps I know more than you do, perhaps I don't. One thing that I do know is that I didn't try to back my claims by a hogwash research society, and make myself appear to look better by accusing someone of putting themselves on a high pedestal. I simply called you a fraud; which is what I think you are.

The one on your site looks identical to the one I can buy in fangcun. Sorry.

They seem to be sincere people out to do a nice thing, and not necessarily familiar with Usenet etitquette. If I'm wrong, so be it, but this flame war only illustrates how hostile this group can be at times ... and over *tea*, no less ... something that should encourage us to be laid back. Take that as you will, but our hospitality is lacking here, I think.

Ian

Then as a service, let me offer you some advice. Get a more professional webmaster that doesn't make your website look like it was thrown together by a 15-year old using paintshop.

Very true. ^_^ Sorry! I meant it as praise to the group and a throwback to the obvious. I didn't mean to put on airs!

I have to disagree with you on this point. I don't with to get into an educational debate with you, but it is not nearly impossible to learn about Chinese culture/language if you have some good friends willing to take the time to explain it to you. Especially if several of those friends are Chinese Lit teachers. It would take years to learn to speak Chinese, yes, it took me two to get to a level where I can communicate my thoughts and feelings freely, but it's not impossible to meet foreigners here that are just as literate, if not moreso literate than some locals, as an "authentic" Chinese living on the mainland. A casual Chinese learner that is immersed in the Chinese language and whom gets to see "Chinese culture" everyday, would pick it up rather quickly.

Writing? I have friends on the net that cannot speak, read, or write English, but I can communicate with them no problem by typing characters. Ming dynasty? What exactly does that have to do with modern Chinese culture? Many people here aren't so interested in learning 文言文, which means "old style articles". Actually, last year in Taiwan, they declared a ban on the compulsory learning of 文言文 in Middle Schools there because it's not so useful to actually learn that in modern times. Now, maybe only some foreign experts interested in learning the 文言文 and some top Chinese scholars would truly be able to understand...ask some people here what this is now, and maybe they wouldn't even know what that is.

Culture and language are indeed deeply related, but it is possible, not "almost near-impossible", to learn a foreign language in the context of that particular country; especially, if you are living in said country.

Jason F in Los snipped-for-privacy@v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com3/2/06

00: snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com

Hi Jason,

I had to pull up old posts to find what you were referring to. Leavng some reference lines from old posts would help a lot.

I was (sort of) joking when I said, Don't forget us dabblers. Here I am at my office desk trying to sort through a thousand pages of various curricula and enjoying my tea at the same time, while typing this out. Some call it multitasking and some call it just plain not paying attention. It took years of meditation to achieve this high state of just not paying attention.

Of the aromaserene tea research society and shop, we know there is a fellow named Aaron Fischer, perhaps another bloke named Eric, a web site selling tea and stuff, and a lot of emphasis on meditation, spirituality, tea, and knowledge. It is my considered opinion that knowledge is the booby prize of life, and I go back to something I have to return to often: The tea will teach you everything you need to know.

Let fortuitous accidents reign.

Michael

snipped-for-privacy@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com3/2/06

00: snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com

[snip Mydnight's excellent refutation of the idea that Chinese culture (almost) cannot be fathomed by us Westerners]

Stop reading here unless you want to subject yourself to the superficial lecture on culture which appears below, to wit:

It is, I believe, part and parcel of culture in general that we believe that there is something so special about our group that outsiders cannot penetrate into it. In other words, no matter who we are, we're the cat's meaoux (sp?????). This sense of superiority manifests in "high culture" in the idea that poetry cannot be translated, for example. (I know, I know, that's a discussion for another day.) There is a bigoted idea afloat that some languages are somehow impoverished: that their vocabulary is limited, or their grammar primitive. English is, according to this idea considered extremely and unusually rich, with a larger vocabulary and shades of meaning unknown in other languages. Although there might be more words in one language than in another, the idea that the latter is somehow lacking is erroneous. The idea that a Westerner cannot pick up the nuances of Chinese culture is equally silly, provided we add to the degree that anyone from one culture can pick up the nuances of another.

Michael

I agree with Michael. There is language, and there is Culture, and there is the Translation - but we are leaving the last one out, too much to discuss on that one alone...

I'm Asian, and I think I'm fair to say that I speak and write English well, and I am efficiently bilingual. English, as a language, has not lost its nuances on me, but sometimes, I do get lost on the cultural nuances in some western cultures, and because these cultures that I encounter are largely English speaking, it can sometimes be confused into thinking that it is the Language, not the Cultures that is lost on us non-English speakers.

Same with Mandarin. I have been told it is not easy to learn this language, because structurally the language roots are different, which means an English-speaking person learning Mandarin has to grapple with a whole new set of language structure which is completely foreign to what he might have learned innately growing up. I speak German (poorly) too, and to learn this language, I applied what I knew the language structure in English to German (I thought they share the same roots), and to my horror it didn't quite work out. My friends, who are Malay, amazing did a much better job at mastering the language than I did. My German teacher joked that her 6 year old son speaks grammatically perfect English, but horrid German still. But I digress...

I believe that it is not difficult to learn a language (but I'm a poor example), it is however not easy to pick up the nuances in that language as employed by the people culturally. It is only in living in the environment that one picks up the more intricate usage of the language as applied to a culture.

Hope I'm making sense.

Danny

Ian, I respectfully disagree. I think this is one of the most laid back and quality newsgroups I have come across in years, and amazingly it remains clear of spam, junk, and flamefests. I don't think any advertising should be accepted or tolerated because it becomes a slippery slope and then the group becomes useless. Vigilance and inquisitiveness are not hostile, if Aromaserene was totally legit then all they had to do was issue a short appology explaining that they meant no foul and then become a productive memeber of the group and it would have all ended. Instead, our questions were met with a condescending and argumentative reply which also attempted to discredit some folks who most around here know full well were spot on.

My personal opinion, is that they are total B.S. Even their attempt to claim that millions of dollars of tea is not out of line is preposterous. To give you some idea, just to have $1,000,000 of the most expensive teas in the world would mean you would need to stock

*40* $25,000.00 teas in one location. Yeah... I don't think so, if a place such as that exists I've never heard of it. While they may have had some good intentions, they went about it all wrong... and not just for a newsgroup, but in any outlet you just don't advertise your product, make great and cryptic claims, and then berate anyone to question you. That is what shows the true "chi" of the company and the folks behind it.

I've wasted enough time now on this aromaserene, and I think many others have too. I wish them well, just not here.

- Dominic

In September 1963, with the permission from Yunnan Tea Leaves Corp, Xiaguan Factory began experimenting in the production of brick teas, changing the formally heart shape compressed tea to bricks. This experiment was led by Mr Li Shida. The produced bricks were sent to south Yunnan for sampling and feedback.

The production of standard brick tea was only approved in 1967, with the approvals from the Yunnan Tea Leaves Corp and Tibet Economic Council to go ahead with the production. To meet this sudden quick demand, approval was given to Meng Hai Tea Factory to produce the bricks as well as Xiaguan Tea Factory and Kunming Tea Factory. This was the year the brick tea production went full swing, the approved end product was also specified by Yunnan Tea Leaves Corp to be 250gm each, 5 bricks to a white paper wrap pack using gurney ropes to tie. 24 packs to make a bundle at 30kg, which makes transportation much easier.

The above information is taken from Yunnan province Tea Leaves Import & Export Corp. Records, pages 15 & 150.

In 1965 Meng Hai Tea Factory only produced bingcha, it did not get the approval from Yunnan Tea Leaves Corp to produce brick teas yet. Only Kunming Tea Factory in the region had the rights. Meng Hai Tea Factory was responsible in providing Kunming Tea Factory the raw ingredients. Most of the ingredients from Meng Hai Tea Factory was picked from the Jinggu region, and in the old days of my grandfather the bricks were known as Kunming Jinggu bricks. As I quoted, Meng Hai Tea Factory began its own production in 1967.

Danny

PWND!

Erh, what's that? See what I mean? This is certainly some subtle nuance in the English Speaking Culture that I don't get the meaning of!

:") Joking!

BTW, apologies, I wrote "south Yunnan" regarding the experimental bricks sent out by Xiaguan Tea Factory in 1963...it should read "north Yunnan".

Danny

Heh, for those who don't know "pwnd" means "owned" which means to beat someone/show someone up. It comes from in online games after a kill you can type "owned" as a sort of taunt to the recently deceased, but when typing quick during a game the "O" and "P" are near each other so it has become PWND.

Seriously though, very good information Danny. I have been slowly coming back around to Pu-Erh and have been reading up on the history and the whole process so the inside info was helpful. Regardless of the implications as far as aromaserene is concerned, I found it a nice intro to the beginnings of Pu-erh.

- Dominic Drinking: Kukicha (the very best kukicha I own, I was feeling special today)

It looks like the aromaserene.com website is no longer online. Anyone know what happened? Mike Petro, did you ever receive your samples from them? What is your opinion of the tea? Just curious, David L