The secondary market is defined in this ebay guide on collectibles terminology as: “the buying and selling of collectibles previously sold on the primary market by retailers to collectors.” . Even though it is a consumable, the pu’erh market is also a collectible market and has a very active secondary markets in the east. In the west there’s a somewhat constant exchange of goods and money in an active secondary market, albeit much lower volume. This market is mainly composed of other drinkers (or people who bought pu’erh to invest) reselling their tea. Sometime it is because they no longer like the tea or bought too much or maybe they are trying to make a profit. Long-time tea drinkers like Wilson or Geraldo set up sites and eventually became pseudo vendors, but most of the western secondary pu’erh market are hobbyists selling off odds and ends in places like facebook groups, teachat or steepster. (more…)
Category: Tea Learning
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Importance of Drinking Moderation
After I had scheduled this post for publication, Marshaln published a post on Caffeine Detox. This is worth reading over. The comments section also includes some personal experiences about overconsumption / overdosing on caffeine.
I suspect the vast majority of the people crazy enough to read this blog and buy tea from the internet started out drinking tea prolifically. Getting home from work or school to a big package of 30+ samples at 6:30PM and starting a five tea marathon session until midnight. Good luck sleeping off that! After a while most of us settle into certain rhythms of when we do or don’t drink tea and end up with fairly different habits than when we first got started into the tea world. (more…)
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Tree Age in Pu’erh [Inbetweenisode 130]
This episode, James talks about the tricky topic of tree age, a common marketing point for dealers of modern pu’erh.
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10 Non-Tea Items To Help You Get Started With Puerh – Guest Post w/Garrett
Garrett is a local tea friend of mine who I drink pu’erh with regularly for the past two years. He’s appeared in a few inbetweenisodes and you can follow him on Instagram at islikewater.
Maybe you have tried a few samples of pu’erh, scoured the internet for articles on brewing techniques and want to brew gongfu style but you don’t have the necessary equipment. Maybe you want to move away from that big 300ml+ tea pot you’ve been using and you’ve seen starter gong fu sets for sale. Are these good deals? What do I really need to get started with gong fu process of brewing and enjoying pu’erh? (more…)
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Buying Teas on Taobao [Inbetweenisode 128]
This episode, James walks through the logistics of buying teas on Taobao.
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Xizihao Report & Tasting Note Compilation
Xizi Hao is a boutique Taiwanese pu’erh brand. With Xizi Hao coming available from Taiwan, I’ve decided to release a few of my notes from my google spreadsheets of tea notes. Unlike other reports these teas were not sessioned in close succession of each other. Thank you to Emmett for sending me a few of these recently. (more…)
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Drinking Log Reflections v1
Last December, I finally ran out of new samples. After that, I began drinking from my stash exclusively. Being an unabashed data nerd I decided to also record my own tea consumption. This is interesting because it is essentially a speed test and can be helpful and informative for my own buying. My uninterrupted drinking was halted in mid January when a whole sleuth of samples arrived creating the obvious caveat of a small data size. Nevertheless, here’s a quick look at the data. (more…)
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Simple Home Storage Solutions
Pu’erh storage is as complicated as you want to make it. But it’s also an issue that needs to be addressed for anyone with a stash. Keeping your pu’erh in open air or close to aromas is a good way to slowly ruin it. Pumidor is a scary sounding word and can represent overly elaborate, endlessly complex solutions.. For instance there are some pu-heads that have hand-built a sealed non-aromatic wood box from scratch with multiple humidifiers and hygrometers. Or installed a fishtank heater to emulate the humidity of more humid storage. This can all be a bit intimidating for someone just getting started with a cake or two. There’s also an appeal in keeping it simple. In many ways, the more complex the solution the more points of stress or concern. Maybe you’re just tipping your toes into the water and have a couple cakes or maybe you prefer a minimalist approach to tea. Either way, it is very possible to create simple, workable solution that don’t involve adding humidity or hygrometers. (more…)
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Extended Episode Pu’erh Regional Primer [Inbetweenisode 124]
An extended episode covering the big pu’erh regions of Yunnan. References to babelcarp and a couple of the regional TeaDB articles.
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Baseball Closers, 99 Bottles of Wine (Drink Your Damn Tea & Buy the Good Shit)
In major league baseball a team’s best relief pitcher is nearly always their closer. For years, the closer has been only used under very specific criteria. (a) Their team is ahead by three runs or less (b) there is one inning left. As advanced statistics and improved game theory have seeped into the sport, some teams have realized that this is a mistake. For instance… Utilizing a team’s best pitcher sometime in the middle of the game can make a lot of sense if stakes are sufficiently high. This logic has slowly caught on amongst some analytical savvy managers, some traditionalists continue to prefer waiting for a “save situation” and have suffered the consequences. This infamously occurred in the 2016 playoffs when long-time manager Buck Showalter never put in the best relief pitcher of the year in a winner takes all game, waiting for a lead that never came. (more…)