Looking for Dayi Reccomendations.

[glenbo]

I was kind of shocked to see that in my opinion there house brand was far more tasty than the dayi or xiaguan.

It has been my experience that you will find better teas among these "house brands" than you will from larger factory offerings. They have better access to higher quality leaf and can put more care into smaller offerings. If they had the weight of Dayi and Xiaguan's marketing budgets on their back they would be selling a different tea.

[puyuan]

Thanks for all the information guys! I really appreciate the time you spent submitting these replies.

Yesterday afternoon I visited a tea shop specializing in puer that have been operating at the same location for over 20 years. The people we very kind and allowed me to sample many of the teas they sale and even allowed me to take several more samples home for me to try. My overall experience was great. They told me to take my time with my purchases and come back whenever I wanted to try some more tea. I was so suprised that they even suggested I go to an area of Taipei that had more varieties for me to try.

When I was there I tasted 3 different Sheng's one was a 2007 XiaGuan, 2007 Dayi, and 2009 Yiwu which they told me was there house brand.
http://postimg.org/image/whyk7r987/
It was was really cool to taste the differences between the different teas and I was kind of shocked to see that in my opinion there house brand was far more tasty than the dayi or xiaguan.

Thanks guys for everything exploring the tea scene in Taipei is way more enjoyable than searching for vendors online! Plus I can sample the tea for free!

I'm glad it turned out fine. You won't be running out of places to visit anytime soon.

If it fits your budget, after drinking puerh for a while, you can try one of the 茶艺 places like Wistaria for truly aged tea.

A place with tremendous teas (all processed by the owner, an umatched virtuoso), but not cheap - 老吉子茶行. The puerh is exceptional and highly prized but it should be an excellent location if you feel like being introduced to taiwanese oolongs as well. I love his whole range of baozhong.

[toby]

There are many good old cakes in Taiwan.

If you like the Xiaguan.
Try the Fei Tai version of 2006, 2005, 2004 or 2003 8653 iron
Cake.

[UrbanMortis]

Just want to say thanks to everyone for their input!

Since I came to Taiwan I have tried some different Puerh teas and as my journey here is coming to a close in a few months I plan on pulling the trigger and buying some more cakes for home.

Also I want to give a shout out to Mr. Paul from white2tea! I made a purchase with him for my parents back home in the states, to put it short the package never made it to our mail box, upon finding out about this I contacted the folks at w2t and they are sending the replacements! Awesome customer service! I will continue to order from his company!

I also visited wisteria prior to the mention in the thread as its a very famous tea house here, and tried there wares. The prices are kind of expensive compared to some of the whole in the wall shops I have found on my walks here. (Crazy what you can find just walking down the alleys after dinner!)

But what thing I have noticed is that I can taste the difference in tea but I cant exactly pin point why its different. I guess this is do to the fact I am still a novice.

Thanks again everyone!