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How Much Does Ripe Pu’erh Cost from Western Vendors?
Since I’ve crunched a bunch of numbers for other pu’erh categories, I figured I should do the same for ripe pu’erh. Ripe pu’erh is not exactly the most talked about tea, but it is generally considered to be affordable and there’s enough options easily accessitlbe to keep most people satisfied. I compiled all the ripe…
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YQH Retrospective & The YQH Value Spot
In our small little westerm tea community, there was quite a stir over YQH in 2015 and 2016. I’ll personally admit to being caught up in both the dialog and purchasing of these teas. YQH remains available via Emmett, the most important figure in making these teas accessible). And while YQH as a conversation piece in the…
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Tea-Side, Vendor Profile & Interview
I had the pleasure of meeting tea vendors and Russian expats Valerii and Jane when I went to Chiang Mai. I had not been planning on any tea meetups on this trip, but Valerii happened to see I was traveling to Chiang Mai on Instagram and we met up for tea. Valerii’s family was very…
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Some Reasons You Should Consider Aging More Oolong & Less Pu’erh
Sometimes when I’m sipping a particularly delicious aged oolong, I’ll glance over at my tea fridge and then to my wine cooler and get some major self doubt. I enjoy drinking pu’erh and happen to own enough that I’ll be aging it for a very long time. But I I also really do enjoy aged…
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Rare Tea: Dry-Stored 1980s/1990s Zhongcha 7542
It wouldn’t be without the generosity of experienced tea hands that I’d be able to do posts like these. A sample was provided by Peter from a cake from Su’s collcetion. Thank you to both of you! About the Tea This tea is not famous when put in comparison with previous teas like the 1988 QB…
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Datapost: The Dearth of Aged Pu’erh Available From Western Facing Vendors
It’s no secret that aged pu’erh is scarce out west. The western vendor scene is dominated by vendors traveling to Yunnan bringing back predominantly young tea to sell. For this exercise, I added all of the older teas from western vendors I could think of. Unlike some of my other data compilations, this one didn’t take…
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Five (+1) More Things I Like & Dislike. People Complaining About Price Hikes, Community Group Buys…
Five more things I like & dislike..
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Missteps & Regrets on TeaDB
In the five years of TeaDB, we’ve made plenty of mistakes and said countless of dumb things in our hours of airtime on TeaDB. This is a list of areas where in retrospect I feel like I would’ve done stuff differently.
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Some Thoughts & Problems With Traditionally Stored Pu’erh
85-90% of the tea being sold is young pu’erh, and the remainder is almost exclusively ripe or 5-10 year old semi-pu’erh. Old-school, traditionally stored pu’erh is an afterthought or an afterthought of an afterthought… This sort of tea can be hit or miss and more of an acquired taste for many.. For me, it’s always…
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Western Vendor Pu’erh Prices at Conception have Risen Since 2011 (& Probably Before)
It’s common in the pu’erh-verse to note the seemingly always rising price of freshly produced tea. Every year more expensive than the last… Even with the limited scope of western-vendor labeled pu’erh, we can take a quick look at the Way Back Machine and glance at what pu’erhs were selling for a few years ago…