TeaDB

Category: Article

  • 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 and compare it to 2017/2018 prices.. It’s also an interesting exercise to look at old Half-Dipper reviews and realize that a lot of tea is simply no longer available. It used to be noteworthy when a fresh cake sold for three figures, now it’s commonplace. Those times are gone.. Oh and that cake is probably 200 grams… (more…)

  • Grams Consumed: Grams Bought. A Relatively Simple Ratio to See If You’re Buying Too Much Pu’erh

    Cakes upon cakes. Filling up fridges by the tong.. Filling up apartments by the fridge. We’ve all seen that instagram. Some may buy a pair of cakes, one for aging and one for drinking.. There’s also the stamp collector who owns 250 different cakes including the entire 2015+2016+2017 White2Tea & Crimson Lotus Tea line. The tong (+1). The two tongs (+1). For the obsessed mind, it is all too easy to buy and accumulate lots of tea. (more…)

  • Five More Things I like & Dislike. Pu’erh Vendors on YT, Seattle, Gambling on Dayi..

    Things that have been occurring in the tea world that I like and dislike.. (more…)

  • Outdoor & Indoor Pu’erh Storage in the West. Why Climate Data Only Tells a Partial Picture for Home Storage.

    A while back I crunched the numbers for climates in some eastern and western cities and compared them to Kunming. One of the takeaways from that article is that despite its reputation, Kunming’s humidity is not that much lower than places with a more humid reputation, i.e. Hong Kong or Taipei. The more significant difference is in the temperature. On a similar note, Seattle (my hometown) is similar in relative humidity but is even colder than Kunming. Hotter air holds more water content and in that article I noted the sometimes under-emphasized importance of temperature. I stand by this, but I now read the climate data a little differently, especially when it comes to the implications of home storage in the west. (more…)

  • Famous Tea: 1988 Qing Bing

    The 1988 Qing Bing is a very famous cakes from the 1980s and early 1990s. Like the 1999 BGT I thought I would share my experiences with it. Phyll Sheng lays out the criteria for 1988 QB in this informative post.

    1. They are Menghai Factory-produced 7542 tea cakes from 1989-1992, and
    2. They are dry-and-naturally stored.

    A sample was very generously sent as a wedding gift by Su who has stored this tea for a couple decades in Malaysia. Thanks so much for your generosity Su! (more…)

  • Settling Down into Tea & Other Reflections

    The past year I had a couple goals. The first was to cut down on tea purchases and the second was to settle into more normal purchasing and consumption tea habits. These were motivated by life circumstances and a desire to be more balanced with my tea habits. I already own a lot of tea, much of which I enjoy drinking, and my behavior should reflect that. With these basic thoughts in mind, I’d say I’ve been partially successful thus far. There have been a few impulsive extra cake splits and purchases than I would’ve liked and the obsessive mind will search for endless ways to get around tea rules (cake splits, sample buys), but by and large I’ve bought a whole lot less tea this year. (more…)

  • Western Brands are Very Different from Big Factory Tea

    • The data from this original post was originally taken from puer.cn, and isn’t totally complete (it’s probably missing some productions). The information is intended as a proxy to look at some trends. Here’s the dataset of White2Tea, Yunnan Sourcing, Dayi, and Xiaguan. Dayi and Xiaguan we looked at 2004-2006 and 2014-2016. For W2T/YS we just looked at 2014-2016.

    It’s no secret that the pu’erh market has changed a lot. Old factories like Dayi and Xiaguan have remained mainstays, but are pretty different entities than they were 30 or 40 years ago. Boutiques and more recently westward facing vendors have popped up. Some have pressed long enough to fall into certain patterns for what they offer, i.e. vendor X sells tea as Wuliang every year. As we’ve examined in what western vendors put into their inventory, boutique western facing vendors don’t necessarily offer a balanced selection of pu’erh. So are these big Chinese vendors offering the same sort of tea as we see places like Yunnan Sourcing or White2Tea are? Not exactly. (more…)

  • You Can Buy Young Pu’erh From All Over Yunnan

    The custom private label pu’erh has really thrived in the western market – with vendors increasingly sourcing their own pressings directly from Yunnan. This was a new thing for westerners back in 2009 when just Yunnan Sourcing and Essence of Tea pressed tea. Now it is almost a rite of passage for a pu’erh-centric vendor, and we have access to a sleuth of options all over Yunnan. (more…)

  • Tea Drinking Reflections 2017

    2017 has been a transitory year for me with a few significant life changes. Part of this involved the very painful process of packing up all my tea-related things and moving from my apartment of five years. This is the first time since my tea-obsession began that I’ve moved. It also forced me to reckon with how much I had accumulated (maybe I can just get rid of more sweaters to fit a few extra cakes?). This year has also been quite different from 2014-2016, with both my consumption and purchasing shifting significantly downwards, a shift I consider to be both positive and healthy.. (more…)

  • Don’t Call it Wet! YS Guangdong and Banna Stored Tastings

    Yunnan Sourcing has quietly added quite a selection of semi-aged pu’erh stored in more humid conditions, not a bad feat for a vendor mainly known for Kunming dry-stored tea and the YS label. Getting the sample itch, I convinced my local tea friend Garrett (also featured in the MX report) to split a few samples and write up some notes. We picked a handful of teas that looked interesting and added a couple teas I already own that fit into the category. (more…)