The most expensive young sheng I find on TB so far ...

[apache]

I think the other way to have nice aged tea with a "reasonable" cost is to buy semi-aged tea, about 10 year old. I think by that time, it should have some good indication about the ageing process.

[shah82]

As with the chances of buying 15 dollar tea--just about all of the ten year old teas available in the west that are any good have been spoken for since about two years ago. We all have to do pack like behavior and dive bomb some hapless TaoBao vender for something that's pretty decent but 9-10 years old.

It's not so so bad. For $150, there are many lovely, lovely semi aged tea to be had. It's just $150, so at most, you could only have one or two of them--if you're not rich or obsessed.

[apache]

As with the chances of buying 15 dollar tea--just about all of the ten year old teas available in the west that are any good have been spoken for since about two years ago. We all have to do pack like behavior and dive bomb some hapless TaoBao vender for something that's pretty decent but 9-10 years old.

It's not so so bad. For $150, there are many lovely, lovely semi aged tea to be had. It's just $150, so at most, you could only have one or two of them--if you're not rich or obsessed.

Yes, I agree, for $150 you could only have one or two not tongs, but I think about this in a slightly different way, I look at the cost per session. A 350g cake would give me well over 50 sessions, and each session, for me, would last at least one day. So this means around $3 per day even if I drink very good pe'urh everyday and drink it to my heart content, normally, for expensive tea likes this, I would only have it every now and then. What could you have for $3 or £2 in UK? A bottle of enjoyable wine would cost around £10 and this would only last no more than 2 days for a wine drinker, a pint of ale costs well over £2 in a pub (alcohol is not my thing). Even a cup of coffee in MacDonald would set you back over a quid. But for £2, you can enjoy very nice pu'erh for the whole day!

Buying cakes which costs around $10 or $15 seems very good value for money, however, not every one of those $10 or $15 cakes you would enjoy to drink. O.K., you might say give a bit of storage time the cakes might improve, but this is by no mean certain. Before you know it, you could easily bought 10 or 20 $10 cakes and only have one or two you like (this actually happened to me), these one of two cakes would almost like costing $100 or $200. For the rest of the tea, there is really not much fun to drink. I'm not trying to say only $100 cake is good enough to drink, but what I'm suggesting is might be instead of having 4 or 5 turning the mill stuffs, just have one good cake instead (you enjoy drinking it now and you knew there is a very high likelihood that if it store well, it would further improve) might not be such a bad idea provided of cause you can afford it.

[debunix]

My favorite sheng cost me $16/beeng.

My first try at a much more expensive aged puerh from Essence of Tea has not toppled the $16 beeng from the top of the heap.

[shah82]

Puerh does take time to appreciate the nuances. Just put the expensive stuff aside and come back to it when you have more experience.

[apache]

Puerh does take time to appreciate the nuances. Just put the expensive stuff aside and come back to it when you have more experience.

+1

It dose take time to "learn" how to appreciate it. At the beginning, I thought some of the modern Dayi shengs were great, but after tasted a lot of different samples and a year of drinking everyday, I found my taste has changed. Interestingly, only after I pay attention of how good shu should taste, then I begin to appreciate good aged shengs.

[pb2q]

Here's some info from the BTH website about the cake in the original post:



Rasta-fabulous.

He seems to be saying that there's an 'old' version, and an 'ancient' version.

It was found here. There are tabs for a bunch of the Chan cakes from the last few years.

[shah82]

Reading the description, it sounds like Hou De's description of the 2007 Autumn Da Xue Shan. I wonder how many similarities there are in the two cakes.

edited to say wow! Not much other than lincangs for sale there. Wonder if they getting popular or what?

[apache]

Here's some info from the BTH website about the cake in the original post:



Rasta-fabulous.

He seems to be saying that there's an 'old' version, and an 'ancient' version.

It was found here. There are tabs for a bunch of the Chan cakes from the last few years.

Yes, the one you show is "hundreds year" version, the one I showed from TB is "thousands year" version.

[auhckw]

I was told at Bulang mountain, at high latitude there are few super old tree at the age of 1k+ years old. Even for young cake... it will cost about USD350 to USD450. Hard to come by too.

Those super old tree at Bulang is higher demand, better quality and taste than LBZ.

If I am lucky enough, will get to sample it this Thurs. Will come back with some feedback if tasted...

[shah82]

From the little tea that I've been exposed to, and from reading around, I don't think there's much improvement in actual taste from a tea that's from a tree 500 years old to a tree that's 1k years old.

However, I'm still interested in tasting results...

[apache]

From the little tea that I've been exposed to, and from reading around, I don't think there's much improvement in actual taste from a tea that's from a tree 500 years old to a tree that's 1k years old.

However, I'm still interested in tasting results...

Hmmm ... One day, don't know when ...

[nicolas]

Here it is (2007 450g cake, almost US$300):
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=6345050346
...

Very tempted to phone "The Best Tea House" see what price they would quote, but I know, even there would not be cheap.

I visited BTH today to try this tea. Here is the pricing:

2007 version - HK$2500 per cake


2008 version - HK$1800 per cake

2009 version - HK$1500 per cake


According to them the reason for their high price is because they guarantee that it is 100% tea leaves from 1000 year old trees (unlike other manufacturers who blend the leaves with younger trees). After trying the tea, I have no reason to disagree with their reasoning, unlike say e.g. Chenshenghao, Zhimingdu which I am certain have been blended with younger leaves.

If you have a lower budget, you can get those from 700 year old trees.
2009 version - HK$560 per cake


Or even 100 - 200 year old trees would be cheaper
2008 version - HK$480 per cake


And yes, BTH or otherwise, one can taste (and feel) the difference between leaves from different age groups of trees.

The ridiculous pricing award (which I discovered and tasted at the Dongguan Tea Expo this month) should actually go to Fujin Tea Company.

RMB2560 (US$400) per 2005 cake - http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=7559002572

RMB3900 (US$580) per 2004 cake - http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=7558779074

[MarshalN]

Which HK forum are you talkng about?

I don't buy any new puerh from BTH -- they're generally no good.

[apache]

I first saw it from here:
http://www29.discuss.com.hk/viewthread. ... a=page%3D6

HK$2500 per cake: I don't mind having a taste of a 10g or 20g sample, but it really price me out for a whole cake, unless it is really really exceptionally good beyond anything I ever tried ...

But thank very much to let me know the price.