by shah82 » Nov 17th, '12, 22:07
I did think you might.
I mentioned that time period because I think people should have an easier to grasp horizon. Buy a few tongs of 15 year puerh, then that means it's far more imaginable that you'll be sitting down at your table, not too different than you are today, about to drink 30yo puerh--no worries that it's some precious precious sample, you've got plenty already!
Yes, in ten year's time, there will be more 15yo tea. That's tea from 2008. Do you think your Dayi 8582 801 is going to be anything like as good as its predecessors? Or more normal, like uber-cheap 90s tuo Nada used to sell? The good single mountain stuff that turned out to age well will probably be beyond anyone's pocketbook. We're probably going to find out, oh, LBZ sucks and DaMenglong (the Mengsong at the Myanmar border) is awesome! Or something crazy like that.
I do not agree that new stuff has been getting more expensive than old stuff. Most of this stuff, Lao Banzhang, '99-'00 Yiwus, they've all been hyped so much, and they've gone up way past what's really reasonable per quality. Now, look the other way. Do you see Houde stocking up on old tea? Hmmm? They've have added a new Ban'E, some quality yiwu over the last year, but they have not added one new aged product. The only thing they did over the last year, maybe two, is sell a few more of those mid-90s bricks. The last new pre 2k item Houde sold was some Dayi 250g tuo from '98. Only a little more '90s Yiwu maocha. A little more of that Vietnamese stuff. Do you see Jing Tea Shop, who used to sell quite a bit of high quality aged tea, sell *anything* older than '99? What, beyond the '99 Fuhai Yiwu has Nada brought back that was anything like recognizable? It's not as if people haven't been rummaging around Skip4tea or Taobao for nameless muck that tastes reasonably decent and aged.
I like non-musty aged tea perfectly fine. I'm just quite well aware of just how much of the stuff that makes it to the West is just meh leftovers that's really costly. Most of the best aged teas I've had was from the stocks of other people who bought their teas long ago. I paid $145 for 400g of XZH LBZ. I paid $165 for 500g of YQH Yiwu. At the time I could feasibly have paid for older tea that I liked at all, what were my choices? A 1993 7542? That was like $330/~340g at Nada's at the time. A reasonably cheap '96 7532 made me nauseus for some reason, same with the Little Yellow Label. A Dadugang Yiwu '99 for $320 @ Houde? A few '01 DaXueShan 100g cans of maocha from same for $70 ea? How about that 80's shu for $197/250g? The stuff that I'd like and want to buy and drink were unconscionably expensive! At the time, good Yiwu and good LBZ (however you want to define it) were still just expensive, and not out of your mind expensive. That's how I made my choices. And I don't think that the broad section of society are going to do otherwise. I'm picky about how I want my aged tea, but I'm not *that* picky. I never got the confidence to try Taobao while I still had money. I never just plunked down the money for that 7542 when I could have, because I wasn't sure then (and later bought '01 7542s that aren't as good). You shouldn't expect people to be happy with just, whatever. Or be comfortable trying to buy products in a language they don't understand, with intermediaries, almost literally from the other side of the Earth. What's more, it's not as if it's only puerh drinkers here face that logic. Puerh drinkers over there do so, too. Aged tea is a minimal presence on the chinese language forums, aside from hkteaforums. I think I will be proven right that the horizons will be more about 8-15 years of aging.