Puerh Education - Varying Mountains & Cultivations

[heatwaves]

I saw this cool offering today on the Art of Tea Magazine's website:

http://www.the-art-of-tea.com/

Apparently it's a sampling set representing 26 different tea mountains in Yunnan as well as varying types of cultivation (wild ancient trees, former plantation tea that's since been abandoned, and new plantation). This would be a great tool to gauge the subleties in many of the various tea mountains. The downside is that this set is about $450. The "ad" lists Hou De, but it isn't available there... at least not yet.

I'm curious as to whether these are full cakes? 50 full cakes for $450 wouldn't be a bad deal.

In the ad, they also state that they sent these samples off for laboratory analysis. I'm curious to see the results based on levels of fluoride and heavy metals.

[Drax]

In the ad, they also state that they sent these samples off for laboratory analysis. I'm curious to see the results based on levels of fluoride and heavy metals.

I almost don't want to know... almost.

This super-collection came up in another thread recently, but I'm completely blanking on it. I'm sure somebody else will remember. And I'm pretty sure it's a "full beeng" from each...

[shogun89]

ifs its a full bing thats a great deal. Comes out to $9/cake.

[thanks]

I think this is slightly old, (the set, not the article), but here is an article about it in the latest issue of the leaf; http://the-leaf.org/issue4/?p=48

[nada]

they're not full cakes, but quite small - at a guess I'd say probably about 150g

[MarshalN]

Judging from the size of the leaves in relation to the cake, it's probably 100g.

[nada]

could well be - they're pretty small

[Drax]

That was it! It was at The Leaf. I had read the other articles in that issue on pu-erh storage, but had only glanced through the sample set one.

It sounds interesting, but if they are small, then it better be some nice quality stuff. The Leaf article doesn't speak too kindly of the 2004 one, though it seems to say this one is better. Still, I don't think I'll be leaping on this one... (notwithstanding having already blown my tea budget for the year haha)