TeaChat

About half of the new cakes for this year available so far are 250g cakes and if you calculate the price based on the usual 357-400g cake weight they're getting quite high.

Do you think they're in line with the market for single area, small village, old tree cakes?

Essentially, the problem is that the price of gushu is out of hand, and is now well past what people outside of China would pay for tea.

Not taking quality into account, just price/weight, Tea Urchin is even higher than Yunnan Sourcing. This is not a judgement on either company as both have good teas and work hard at procuring and making their own private label cakes. I've never had a bad tea from TU.

ChengduCha wrote:About half of the new cakes for this year available so far are 250g cakes and if you calculate the price based on the usual 357-400g cake weight they're getting quite high.

Do you think they're in line with the market for single area, small village, old tree cakes?

Since last year, at least, Scott has produced his spring Yiwu area cakes in 250g size (lots of 2010 cakes were that size, too).

Without enormous experience in high quality tea, and young Yiwu pretty much tasting similar to me, I can't say whether they are in line with the market.

Tea prices have been rising all the way in the past a few years. This year, quite a few brand name teas' new products are more expensive than their vintage counterparts, which is against the value gradient.
Good thing is puerh is still overall much less expensive than greens and oolongs

gingkoseto wrote:This year, quite a few brand name teas' new products are more expensive than their vintage counterparts, which is against the value gradient.

There are a few good cakes made around 2006 by second tier brands that haven't moved in pricing at all on Taobao for the year that I've been returning to buy them and still remain at very cheap levels.

I guess price fixing in specific areas and the need for companies to come up with new cakes every year from these areas is the result of the current pricing.

I wonder if they'll come down in the next couple years when all the excess inventory can't be shifted anymore.

Glad to hear there's movement towards smaller bings, even if it is in concert with rising prices. After all, it is a classic retail strategy. I'd like to buy more puerh, but 35-50 servings is a lot to pay for at once.

EoT reduced the size of their cakes as well. Or at least, most of the cakes from last year were 400g, and the ones offered this year are 357g. Subtle, but still a 10% reduction.

I kinda like buying two xiao bings one to drink and one to age intact,
But these prices are making me nervous . How much higher can they go?
Scary for the past Two years I have been worried about scooping up all aged up I could get before I could no longer afford any. Now new tea is getting more expensive than old tea. One could get
a proven ten year old cake like Zhou Yu's 03 Zi pin for the price of a new Gfz.

gasninja wrote:One could go but a proven ten year old cake like Zhou Yu's 03 Zi pin for the price of a new Gfz.

So buy lots of zipin instead of new GFZ. That's a classic example of a bubble, I think - when value goes out the window

It's about 2-3 Zipin for a real GFZ.

The flip side is that the Zipin is only just nice tea, in my book. Plenty of older Yiwu out there that's not worth the piss, so the Zipin stands out a bit. Glories of glories 10yo Yiwu with some real qi tend to be unavailable (but found at better prices if you keep an eye out to snipe), while famous teas are extremely expensive even if it's not a fake.

I don't think there is much of a way out. Even when the bubble pops, the single mountain puerh world is going to be like the super-famous green teas...the average consumer will have to go way out of their way to taste something truly good, and have it all go above their heads in terms of comprehension, like pearls before swine. The sheer amount of tea Yunnan produces, even of the good stuff, can help, but everyone and their mom is going to monopolize each little village to support high prices. Hopefully, better care of the trees come into the bargain, as there have been some note in the Chinese nets about damage to the ancient plantations, particularly in Bingdao and Xigui.

gasninja wrote:One could go but a proven ten year old cake like Zhou Yu's 03 Zi pin for the price of a new Gfz.

Which would you rather have?

In general I would rather have a ten year old tea than a fresh tea of higher quality. I like aged puerh better than young she ng. Its allot less of a wait for an 03 cake to mature than. A 2012.

gasninja wrote:In general I would rather have a ten year old tea than a fresh tea of higher quality. I like aged puerh better than young she ng. Its allot less of a wait for an 03 cake to mature than. A 2012.

I'll second that!

gasninja wrote:In general I would rather have a ten year old tea than a fresh tea of higher quality. I like aged puerh better than young she ng. Its allot less of a wait for an 03 cake to mature than. A 2012.

That's fair. I agree with you in general terms, but for some reason would prefer young GFZ to the Zipin. Maybe because I am a big fan of GFZ.