The slippery slope

[Tead Off]

I drank this thousands of times before discovering Puerh. It didn't prepare me in the slightest!

It's not easy being English.

[Tead Off]

I like elements of Shah's arguments. I fear the man who has drunk the same tea 1000 times much more than the man who has drunk 1000 teas just once.

How about the man who has drunk 50 teas 100 times?

He fails at arithmetic if he was only supposed to drink tea 1000 times.

The arithmetic was not the point. The broadened experience was the point. People need a basis for making choices. The only way you develop this is through experience, varied experience. In this way, you have a database from which decisions are drawn from. This is the way the brain works.

I got that, but skewing the numbers that much, is like asking, who would you trust in their judgment of a teas merits... Someone who has had one tea a week for two years, or someone whose had a tea a day for a year?

When you change the total number of teas by that much you throw off the comparison in an uneven fashion. But to fix it for you but still get what you are going for, we could ask: "What about someone who has had 50 teas 20 times each?"

Funny, but I thought the other numbers were skewed.

[NOESIS]

Simply allow your neocortex to restrain your limbic system.

[the_economist]

I did something pretty close to the 1 tea, 1000 times--I was drinking only two teas, always the same version from the same brand, for many years, before I suddenly started drinking a lot of different teas. The years of limited tea varieties did prepare me to recognize the differences when I broadened my tea horizons, but it was sampling a wide variety of teas that really got it going.

That was my point. Thinking hard about a single tea, trying to get the best out of it, learning everything about it, can prepare you for the sampling. Otherwise, much of the sampling can be wasted.

[nada]

I think, as with most things in life, the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle.

Concentrating on just a few teas will allow you to become familiar with those few teas and how to get the best out of them, but won't help you understand how their qualities (or lack of quality) fit within the wider scope of what's possible.

Sampling widely, but with just a few sessions of each tea is a good way to experience a range of different teas, but without perhaps the experience to be able to appreciate them to the full.

Luckily it's not a 'one or the other' situation & we can do a bit of both. I would still recommend restraint on stocking up in bulk of anything until fairly settled in one's tastes and preferences.

[shah82]

Here's the thing...

What is bulk? All I've ever really meant to pass along is that cakes are samples, too. There is nothing wrong with having tuition tea that you hate, because that is an inevitable part of the process, sampling or not. Trying out a few actual cakes (and they need not be big! 100g, 250g is just fine!) among your sampling should be part of your introduction.

This is all separate from the fact that samples in many places are unreasonably expensive, especially vis á vis properly finished teas like shu, blacks or oolongs.

Lastly, part of the reason I got into puerh was the indefinite expiration date, and thus the ability to store up future consumption at today's prices. That turned out to be a lifesaver, for me, personally, even though I've only ever bought one tong and one super-cake. You want to get up to speed quick enough to confidently buy cakes and tongs. Even if inflation isn't a problem, deflation usually involves the withdrawal of products, or the cessation of production. People who got up to speed 7 years ago managed to buy a small, but real, stash of old tea entirely out of discretionary budgets, for example. Something that's not true today. Really good boutique puerh used to be pretty cheap, especially compared to Wuyi of reasonable quality. Now, we're largely stuck with OK teas with hints of greatness costing $120/400g new, or imitation/really young well managed plantation tea for $60/400g new. Part of the original point of puerh, and which is still the point, really, is to fix the quality of your consumption for the foreseeable future. Sampling beyond the basics of understanding what you like (when you're not a n00b anymore), should be reserved for drinking *great* tea, like if you bought an ounce of good dancong from Tea Habitat!

[Tead Off]

The thing is.......
Most of the people on here don't have money to burn buying cakes they will eventually never want to drink because they discover they are not very good. What long time tea drinker doesn't have a pile of tea they don't drink or want, really? When you're 10 years into the game and take a look around you, you realize how many mistakes you've made. There's nothing wrong with mistakes but the point of conversations like this is to help others minimize their mistakes. Nada, who is a seller, is trying to help those learn and minimize their 'tuition'. Sampling is really the best way for most people to learn about Puerh tea. Reading what others like and then sampling to see if your tastes run parallel to theirs makes sense. Spending $10 vs $100 to see if you like a tea is a no-brainer if it is possible.

Then, there is the speculation part of the game which appeal to many gamblers. They are very interested in making a profit down the line, buying teas to hoard and sell, hoping their value accelerates. This part of the game has nothing to do with drinking and enjoying tea. It's business and you can still buy some expensive teas that you won't like very much but heard that you should like. Lots of trickery here, too. Sort of reminds me of Yixing and the quest for the Holy Grail.

[shah82]

Who says you have to buy $100 cakes? That being said, in '10 buying $100 cakes generally paid off quite a bit for me in lots of very happy sessions over the next three years. Today, there are many outfits offering $100 teas that don't have exceptional qualities.

Let's not confuse the issue though. All that was being asked is that people recognize that some experience in depth is valuable, and that you should buy one or a few cakes--they need not be expensive cakes either. This is a part of minimizing mistakes, too.

Puerh tea is a type with an enormous dynamic range, with the possibility of excellence even though it doesn't have overtly pleasant flavors. With the possibility of change in basic characteristics, rather than just a mellowing out. It's just too easy to get lost among the various flavors without anchors.

[Teaism]

Once in this path, the slope is inevitably very slippery, so it depends on how we slide down...maybe to a santuary or nightmare.

The only good way is to fanatically learn, sample, and store the tea correctly.
Buy in small quantity and pair with good quality tea to evaluate the tea. You cannot see how grey is grey unless you put it next to another grey. Tea is in many shades of grey.

Look at the tea leaves, not the brand. Store and age the tea correctly.

Be realistic, no producer will market the good tea in cheap price. Buy with your eyes and tongue, not with your ears. No teahouse would say anything negative about their tea, even it is a $10 beeng. Taste with your tongue, see with your eyes and close your ear! Always use your instinct.

And don't get cheated twice, first by the vendors and then by yourself by telling yourself it is a good tea even if it is not.

Sorry for the naggy points. To many people have slide into shithole in tea collection.

[Tecnorobo]

I'm with Shah. Certainly, there are teas that belong in the shithole (for lack of a better word). However, I own a couple of "cheap" teas. They're not amazing. But, there are several things I enjoy about these teas. I think, obviously the biggest problem is people trying to pass off a large majority of these teas for something they are not.

It's quite annoying hearing "old tree this", "super rare village material that" when it's pretty easy to tell what you're drinking is not top notch material. Why would cheaper tea's make these claims in the first place? (That's a rhetorical question)

At any rate, Puerh tea is good. It's very good. I actually fear for the day when I'm privileged enough to try something that absolutely wow's me. I know it's out there. I just haven't stumbled upon it yet.

Which in a way leads me to my next point. Unfortunately, I'm a westerner. I have one friend in real life who drinks puerh. The only reason he does is because I got him into it. The rest of the folks I know don't even know what puerh tea is. I do not speak chinese. I could not even pronounce the mountains and villages the tea comes from if I tried.
I need a community like this one to teach me. You'll likely be seeing more of me around these parts. And, if people don't do it around here already, maybe we can trade some tea sometime?

Thanks for all these great replies.
-PBR

[Chip]

And, if people don't do it around here already, maybe we can trade some tea sometime?

We do have TeaSwap located here : http://www.teachat.com/viewforum.php?f=33

[ChengduCha]

As a new drinker faced with the situation of having a gazillion cakes to choose from it's probably easy to imagine that one will quickly part with a lot of money to assemble a collection, but if you sample a bunch of teas you'll most likely narrow it down to 3-4 cakes that you really want to drink on a regular basis, not spend more than $200 on them and happily sample and acquire some more when your regular drinking depletes your stock, unless you have obsessive collection tendencies with the highly relative scarcity of cakes in mind (there'll always be a new cake next year).

I guesstimate that I as a daily pu drinker who doesn't buy cakes costing more than $60, spend about $50 max per month on my tea habit, which is a lot less than most people spend at star bucks per month.

There are lots of different cakes and lots of different producers, but taste wise there are only a handful of very distinct separations while everything else is in the details.

While I agree with taste differences from brew to brew depending on amounts, brewing length and style etc., they're usually not that huge that you like a tea today and hate it tomorrow unless the material used is really inconsistent, which arguably doesn't make it a great tea to begin with.

Unless you fall for the costly 20+ years aged stuff it's a very inexpensive habbit.

[Teaism]

Unless you fall for the costly 20+ years aged stuff it's a very inexpensive habbit.

The costly 20+ years old tea is still worth the price IMHO, maybe just a piece for reference and education, but the problem is 99.99% of it are fakes or badly stored genuine ones.

Believe me that if one have tried a real old genuine sheng pu which has been properly stored and brewed, the person will be very likely to literally kneel down and beg the collector to sell it.

[BioHorn]

Unless you fall for the costly 20+ years aged stuff it's a very inexpensive habbit.

Believe me that if one have tried a real old genuine sheng pu which has been properly stored and brewed, the person will be very likely to literally kneel down and beg the collector to sell it.

Lovely quote, worth repeating!

[apache]

Unless you fall for the costly 20+ years aged stuff it's a very inexpensive habbit.

Believe me that if one have tried a real old genuine sheng pu which has been properly stored and brewed, the person will be very likely to literally kneel down and beg the collector to sell it.

Lovely quote, worth repeating!

This is how one become a tea junky.