Re: Puerh with High Energy
Posted: Oct 4th, '12, 16:20
The Sanhetang website sez almost $600. Which is cheap compared to peers. For example, on Skip4tea, the Nanyanghao from '07 is $600/250g cake. The Chenshenghaos are all around that price as well. The bok choys are around $800-$1000. There is very little qualitative discrimination in wide ranges of puerh products, even in banzhangs.
As far as super-premium 2011 and 2012 doing as well? Well, I don't know. There wasn't always the best of processing in the early days, and today is much better on a consistent basis. On the other hand, if you didn't get your top Banpo laozhai back mid-decade, you certainly can't get the good stuff today. This seems to be true of many old favorite places like Mahei. On the other hand, places like GFZ, and later on, Wangongzhai have increased in prominence, and there are many newer faves that are getting fully explored by the public, like Xikong. While the good stuff from quiet faves like top grade Youle is pretty rare on the market now. Also back mid-decade, ancient gardens, especially outside of Banna were being explored by the likes of He Shihua, and in the process, new lincangs and lancang county gushu were introduced into the market up to about 2006. However, most of these place, especially in Lancang, remained quite obscure, outside of Bangwei, Jingmai, and Yangta. Wenshan and Kunlushan are still not widely sold despite some promotion. I think this is because most places there had very small ancient plantations, which get bought up quietly.
So as you can see--in puerh, this is about grabbing unique classes of products while they are still available. The expense is kind of a distraction--American customers just had a very warped sense of nonprivilege when it came to puerh. Not very many people were ever offered access to anything like reliable brands better than Dayi--and there was a lack of appreciation of what it was than XZH offered, beyond the label of superpremium tea. We were only competing against mostly Taiwanese customers before the Mainlanders got in the game. That the overall supply of many of these teas were tiny compared to the probable overall demand. This is why, as a puerh customer, one has to break down what it is, precisely, they are paying money for--so they can measure against the retail of other product that offer similar qualities. For example, suppose you see a 2001 Jingmai. One adjusts the perspective on what older JIngmai can be like. They tend to lose qi, complexity/become flat, and huigans as they age. So, if you sip a 2001 Jingmai tea with qi, complexity, and huigans while still tasting aged--then that's worth quite a bit more than you might expect, and a bing that looks expensive at first sight looks cheap on deeper inspection. Buy, Buy, Buy as much as you can afford.
The big problem with thinking about 2011 and 2012 teas are twofold. First, premium tea have largely shifted to less potent areas, use less high quality leaves from top trees. XZH's quality has dropped quite a bit after 2009. That means sampling is ever more necessary for expensive teas, and ever more expensive to do, adequately. You could buy blindly from top brands in 2006 and 2007 and do ok to great! So long as you verify the brand is genuinely top and not because they said so. Nowaday, every brand has more variance in quality, and there are far more brands to choose from, and some, if not most, are fronting. There are higher upfront costs in terms of choosing teas, and mistakes are more common and more costly in the long run.
As far as super-premium 2011 and 2012 doing as well? Well, I don't know. There wasn't always the best of processing in the early days, and today is much better on a consistent basis. On the other hand, if you didn't get your top Banpo laozhai back mid-decade, you certainly can't get the good stuff today. This seems to be true of many old favorite places like Mahei. On the other hand, places like GFZ, and later on, Wangongzhai have increased in prominence, and there are many newer faves that are getting fully explored by the public, like Xikong. While the good stuff from quiet faves like top grade Youle is pretty rare on the market now. Also back mid-decade, ancient gardens, especially outside of Banna were being explored by the likes of He Shihua, and in the process, new lincangs and lancang county gushu were introduced into the market up to about 2006. However, most of these place, especially in Lancang, remained quite obscure, outside of Bangwei, Jingmai, and Yangta. Wenshan and Kunlushan are still not widely sold despite some promotion. I think this is because most places there had very small ancient plantations, which get bought up quietly.
So as you can see--in puerh, this is about grabbing unique classes of products while they are still available. The expense is kind of a distraction--American customers just had a very warped sense of nonprivilege when it came to puerh. Not very many people were ever offered access to anything like reliable brands better than Dayi--and there was a lack of appreciation of what it was than XZH offered, beyond the label of superpremium tea. We were only competing against mostly Taiwanese customers before the Mainlanders got in the game. That the overall supply of many of these teas were tiny compared to the probable overall demand. This is why, as a puerh customer, one has to break down what it is, precisely, they are paying money for--so they can measure against the retail of other product that offer similar qualities. For example, suppose you see a 2001 Jingmai. One adjusts the perspective on what older JIngmai can be like. They tend to lose qi, complexity/become flat, and huigans as they age. So, if you sip a 2001 Jingmai tea with qi, complexity, and huigans while still tasting aged--then that's worth quite a bit more than you might expect, and a bing that looks expensive at first sight looks cheap on deeper inspection. Buy, Buy, Buy as much as you can afford.
The big problem with thinking about 2011 and 2012 teas are twofold. First, premium tea have largely shifted to less potent areas, use less high quality leaves from top trees. XZH's quality has dropped quite a bit after 2009. That means sampling is ever more necessary for expensive teas, and ever more expensive to do, adequately. You could buy blindly from top brands in 2006 and 2007 and do ok to great! So long as you verify the brand is genuinely top and not because they said so. Nowaday, every brand has more variance in quality, and there are far more brands to choose from, and some, if not most, are fronting. There are higher upfront costs in terms of choosing teas, and mistakes are more common and more costly in the long run.