LOLkyarazen wrote:hmm... this cake only costs $3 USD...shah82 wrote:There are a lot of very good looking cakes with expensive looking picking and care for leaves that don't make good tea. Plenty of terrible looking bings that would start a bidding war here if it was ever available. Though most premium teas look good.
Those are prizes! You won!gasninja wrote:This is a rough looking cake to I found 2 sticks, a wood chipand a piece of plastic string just chipping out a pots worth of tea.
That's good to know, but not exactly answering my question. I know I have to pay. Was that article written by someone who sells tea, perchance?shah82 wrote:bonescwa, take a look at:http://www.art-of-tea.net/page/7
Scroll down to the third article that states that "Quality Aged Puerh Has Never Been Cheap". Now, this is talking about what ten years old tea has tended to cost as a percentage of your paycheck, but I think it applies to higher grade tea as well...
In short:
1) First rule of puerh is to get good at tasting puerh, so you quickly realize what is good and what isn’t.
2) Second rule of puerh is to buy lots of anything you estimate is good. Tongs are important!
3) Third rule of puerh is that everyone realizes all price mismatches and what’s decent well before it’s decently obvious, so look at rule one. Waiting until later means that you pick over “good bargain” leftovers.
4) Fourth rule of puerh is to find out how much the tea *should* cost, and use the first rule to figure whether the sample in front of you represents the appropriate grade you desire.
Any real gaoshanzhai gushu will cost you a bundle.bonescwa wrote:I found an old bag of samples and came across about 10 g of teaurchin's spring 2012 gaoshanzhai. This is the tea that made me understand what the fuss was all about. For being only 2 years old it has almost no bitterness and has a sweet floral barnyard taste and aroma. Anyone know of any decent non-Teaurchin gaoshanzhais that are still available and reasonably priced? This one is neither.
I figured... I wasn't sure if it was one of the costlier regions or not. do you think there are any regions that are undervalued for their quality right now?MarshalN wrote:Any real gaoshanzhai gushu will cost you a bundle.bonescwa wrote:I found an old bag of samples and came across about 10 g of teaurchin's spring 2012 gaoshanzhai. This is the tea that made me understand what the fuss was all about. For being only 2 years old it has almost no bitterness and has a sweet floral barnyard taste and aroma. Anyone know of any decent non-Teaurchin gaoshanzhais that are still available and reasonably priced? This one is neither.
It's not one of the costlier villages in Banna, but that doesn't mean it's cheap anymore. My friend pressed two types of gaoshanzhai cakes this year. One with the plump looking leaves typical of the place (made from selected bigger trees) and a more normal one, and sold me a kg of the second, at cost. It was 1500 rmb per kg, 2500 retail. That's the cheapest possible, imo, unless the farmers sold later flushes for less, or if you get something heavily cut with small tree material. Tea from Xishuangbanna has gotten very expensive all over. Many places, even ones that had stable high price-to-quality ratios, doubled in price from last year. There are still little-known groves in places like the deeper ends of Yiwu, but the chances of finding tea from such a place are very slim, and the chances of finding anything worth the while (due to processing issues) are even slimmer. (That's talking about 2014 teas, that is.)bonescwa wrote:I figured... I wasn't sure if it was one of the costlier regions or not. do you think there are any regions that are undervalued for their quality right now?MarshalN wrote:Any real gaoshanzhai gushu will cost you a bundle.bonescwa wrote:I found an old bag of samples and came across about 10 g of teaurchin's spring 2012 gaoshanzhai. This is the tea that made me understand what the fuss was all about. For being only 2 years old it has almost no bitterness and has a sweet floral barnyard taste and aroma. Anyone know of any decent non-Teaurchin gaoshanzhais that are still available and reasonably priced? This one is neither.
Thanks Jakub, I'll check it outJakubT wrote:bonescwa: These days, I find the following http://www.chawangshop.com/index.php/pu ... -200g.html tea hardish to beat for the price - it is a fair, old-tree Yiwu, not unlike some Gaoshanzhais, as far as I remember. But still, it's not cheap so you might want to start with a sample.
