Hey Bears,bearsbearsbears wrote:I take issue with two ideas in your post, Hop.
First, a minor issue:Not exactly true. 15 year old baoyan productions are pretty damn good by aged tea standards, depending on their storage. Older baoyan productions are even better. The 1930s jincha I had (not Xiaguan, but still Tibetan export quality) was amazing. Not that baoyan today is guaranteed to be that good, but even baoyan from 2001 is aging really well, IMO.hop_goblin wrote:they are not even meant for aging. They are made for the tibetan market. This is not to say that they wont age.. everything ages.. however, I will not invest time and space to for something that will be avg or even below avg in 15 years.
Second, the idea that you can't get a good tea for $10/bing. I don't think this is correct.
A $10 tea from a retailer is not likely to be good, considering that the tea traveled through both a wholesaler and a retailer before arriving to the consumer. YSLLC and Puerhshop must be making a good deal of profit to support themselves. The wholesale cost of that cake might actually be $5-6. The production cost was probably half this. A cake that cost $2.50-$3 to produce is probably not very good.
Still, all told, my personal cost for producing Nannuo Lao Shu Cha came to approx $17/cake--at the height of the market prices in Spring 2007. Good nannuo high mountain plantation tea (approx 20-40 year old bushes) was $20 per kilo, or roughly $6.80 per cake for what I consider to be good age-worthy tea. Cut the old tree tea with the young tree tea, and you could produce a cake partially lao shu cha and partially high elevation plantation tea for $10--easy. Of course, that cake would be priced at maybe $20 retail...
Now imagine you blend Menghai area high elevation young tree mao cha ($10-15/kilo) with some lao shu cha...you could possibly produce good cakes and sell them in bulk for $10 apiece.
Lastly, the prices have come down dramatically since 2007. Maybe Yiwu and Banzhang "zhengshan" mao cha still command high prices, but if I were to visit the same farmers to make my cakes again, my net cost would be much lower.
So, it's entirely possible. But, knowing Chinese businessmen and the less than ethical profiteering of the pu'er boom, it's not likely that cake was made in 2006-2008.
Jason, when I mentioned the Tibetan brick, I meant the stuff that is being produced in the last couple of years. I should of clarified. I know that BY bricks can be well - ok.. I have reviewed a 2001 and found it quite pleasing also. However, this does not mean I wish to make them the corner stone of my pu collection. I also don’t believe it’s unreasonable to entertain the possibility that even maocha for mediocre productions was much better 7 to 10 years ago than shortly after the boom. If not, I stand corrected. None the less, IMHO there is a GOOD possibility that a Tibetan export s of the 30s would not be comparable to what is being produced. If so, I would like more clarification as I would really like to know: D I personally haven’t found much evidence that would suggest otherwise. What I do know is that there is great debate as to what type of maocha even went in to making some of the antique vintages since record keeping during that time was not the main priority for these older factories. There is a greater chance that XiaGuan have better records but I guess I don’t know.
Nonetheless, I was speaking the most realistic scenario which is the one you presented at the end of your post and not a hypothetical.
"Now imagine you blend MengHai area high elevation young tree mao cha ($10-15/kilo) with some lao shu cha...you could possibly produce good cakes and sell them in bulk for $10 apiece." ..... What are you waiting for, you need to ask MengHai Factory for a blending Job!
P.S, this is what I am TALKING ABOUT!
And I said that with love.
