2010 Menghai

[heatwaves]

Anyone know why most 2010 Menghai cakes are still not available? Yunnan Sourcing, as well as other dealers, typically have a full array each year. This year, it seems to be slim pickings. It's possible that Chinese investors could have bought a lot, but since the Puerh boom is over (with a few more wary investors) and since Menghai produces so much, it doesn't seem to be the case.

[auhckw]

This is what a tea shop here told me...

In China, more and more TaiTea official resellers shops are being opened. Therefore distribution tea is getting spread out. Even the shop here is only able to get smaller quantity compared to previous years.

With more demands, price will definitely increase in years to come... quality can be an issue too

He also said, as China is very big, not everyone there that drinks tea, drinks puerh. But more and more people are getting aware of puerh. He said, if more and more people in China drinks puerh, there is definitely not enough for out of China distribution.

[ycleong]

My regular tea shop brought in less Dayi puer this year. The reason given to me was Dayi gained a lot of mileage in being one of sponsors for the Asian Games (2010) and its puer are moving off the selves much faster these days in China. Hence less readily available to tea merchants outside China. I wonder whether it's just an excuse to jack up the prices of puer from Dayi or supply is actually getting tighter.

[shogun89]

I emailed Scott (owner of YSLLC) in the beginning of the season asking him why we are not seeing big Dayi recipe cakes such as 7542 and he said that price had a lot to do with it. A Dayi 7542 001 was selling for around $20, which is a 100% increase over last years price, now keep in mind this is based on Western prices, not sure how much the prices increased in China and other Asian countries. Scott told me that he refused to pay such a high price for a standard recipe cake when he could buy other nice cakes out there for a similar price. I'm sure there are many reasons to why we have not seen many 2010 Dayi products, but there is some of the story.

[shah82]

$20, eh? That isn't the kind of stuff that should be anything other than cheap. You want to easily tong that sort of thing. You can easily check YS's back catalog for reasonably comparable items for less. I'd focus on the cheapest/per year stuff though. There are lots of cakes that are still in the low thirties from 2005 which are perfectly adequate for future daily consumption of aged tea. Those would be a better idea than, say $25 for 2008 stuff, not that I would turn my nose up at a Big Classic or a Big Red or Silver.

But seriously, I already was shell-shocked by the new XZH prices at the beginning of the year. This isn't a surprise anymore, that went when people just bought up all the XZH Pashas like *that*.

[berkeleyluddite]

Tried the '10 HongYun vs. the '09 HongYun today... The '10 HongYun noticeably more structured and complex when compared to the '09 HongYun. More ZiYun like in ways that's pleasant to my palate.

Ironically, I found the 7542 001 too be disappointing for lack of complexity and structure.