Accessible LBZ/Bingdao

[honza]

There is really funny situation down in Banna and a lot of crazy, rich and dont know tea buyers who start pu-erh business just now and come with xx milions yuan in pocket.

These prices Shah82 wrote, are right in 90%, some are cheaper and some more expensive. Best to count prices is know how much in actuall time is sell fresh leaves.
From my info of people who do these places, Hekai not jump in price and is 100+ for fresh leaves and 600 for maocha
Naka is 200 to 220 for fresh leaves and 900 for maocha
Jingmai da zhai is also cheaper for old customers like 800+ for pure Da zhai material, other villages are 500-600 but there will price go down fastly in next month for second and next harvets.
The best hell is LBZ. Ok, sorry, I don´t like LBZ but... the price 5000rmb is for SMALL trees and samples I had was for 100% pure "xiao shu" LBZ and really bad tea, Just something in taste nearly like taidi and if price will be 100rmb I will thinking about put to some blend or so, but 5000rmb It´s show which kind of people now buying this bad raw material and make this price. 8000 but more like 10 000rmb is LBZ big tree.
Day before yesterday at night was big rain in Hekai and LBZ area and in LBZ have a lot of hailstone there, Not good thing, the same with last year.

Interesting for this time is, taidi is 100% or more expensive than last year in most of Mengla and Mengai areas. Normal buyers just wait for prices crash and not accept it.
BUT gardens of Menghai Dayi TF, they will pay to the farmes 1 yuan more then previous year

[bagua7]

I hope it collapses soon, corruption gets washed away and genuine puerh tea drinkers, who love this art, remain and we all start afresh, back to the old days or at least a bit closer.

Speculating with tea trees is just bad karma. It saddens me.

[茶藝-TeaArt08]

Just read this (http://hojotea.com/en/posts-80/) before seeing this thread. A friend in Shenzhen China just sent us a nice cooked brick and some loose sheng from their friend's tea shop there; she was remarking in her email how expensive the tea was in China and how, as a Chinese person, it surprised her.

Blessings!

[TwoDog2]

Day before yesterday at night was big rain in Hekai and LBZ area and in LBZ have a lot of hailstone there, Not good thing, the same with last year.

From what I could see there was no significant damage in either place the day after. The tea trees were fine, anyhow.

The price increases are not from corruption per se, as much as from demand for a very limited amount of tea. Even with Laobanzhang mixing tea heavily from surrounding areas and putting out an inferior product (in comparison to previous years) there are still people like a many who I ran into yesterday, who came to Yunnan from Henan with the intention of purchasing Laobanzhang, as much as he could (roughly 60 kg), for his friends and himself to drink.

As long as this archetype of person exists, the prices for limited teas like this will not fall.

[shah82]

Yeah, the hailstorm thing is said every year. I don't think there has been a real weather anti-tea event since the massive South China snows of 2008, and that hit the oolong areas the most.

Henan, that sez it all...

And yeah, 60kg of LBZ? Man, if there's a lot of that going on, the woah baby is that stuff CUT. I mean, 2000 of that sort of person would have the entire harvest, and there is a lot more interest than that.

I do think the price will fall, because at some point, people will have understood that the quality has fallen.

[TwoDog2]

And yeah, 60kg of LBZ? Man, if there's a lot of that going on, the woah baby is that stuff CUT. I mean, 2000 of that sort of person would have the entire harvest, and there is a lot more interest than that.

I could sit and tell you anecdotes about all of the business men who fly out here for a day and go to 'LBZ' to buy as much tea as they can fit in their Mercedes SUV's, but i have other appointments.

One other thing, I have not encountered a 600 Hekai that was not Qiaomu or worse. But you never know

[honza]

The Hekai info is from seller who have rent some mu of gushu gardens there, but prices jumping or go down everyday. From my last info, yesterday Naka fresh leaves jump to near 300rmb for fresh leaves and so 1200+ for maocha...

[kyarazen]

supply and demand.. cant blame the chinese for becoming affluent..

[shah82]

but you can blame the nouveau riche's lack of taste.

[TwoDog2]

but you can blame the nouveau riche's lack of taste.

I'm always down for some yuppy bashing

[shah82]

This is interesting context, apparently some yuppies are already bashed...

http://jingdaily.com/chinas-luxury-tea- ... aft-drive/

[fdrx]

Some more information about spring '14:
http://www.zhizhengtea.com/puerblog/spring-tea-2/

[Jingjiatang]

There is really funny situation down in Banna and a lot of crazy, rich and dont know tea buyers who start pu-erh business just now and come with xx milions yuan in pocket.

These prices Shah82 wrote, are right in 90%, some are cheaper and some more expensive. Best to count prices is know how much in actuall time is sell fresh leaves.
From my info of people who do these places, Hekai not jump in price and is 100+ for fresh leaves and 600 for maocha
Naka is 200 to 220 for fresh leaves and 900 for maocha
Jingmai da zhai is also cheaper for old customers like 800+ for pure Da zhai material, other villages are 500-600 but there will price go down fastly in next month for second and next harvets.
The best hell is LBZ. Ok, sorry, I don´t like LBZ but... the price 5000rmb is for SMALL trees and samples I had was for 100% pure "xiao shu" LBZ and really bad tea, Just something in taste nearly like taidi and if price will be 100rmb I will thinking about put to some blend or so, but 5000rmb It´s show which kind of people now buying this bad raw material and make this price. 8000 but more like 10 000rmb is LBZ big tree.
Day before yesterday at night was big rain in Hekai and LBZ area and in LBZ have a lot of hailstone there, Not good thing, the same with last year.

Interesting for this time is, taidi is 100% or more expensive than last year in most of Mengla and Mengai areas. Normal buyers just wait for prices crash and not accept it.
BUT gardens of Menghai Dayi TF, they will pay to the farmes 1 yuan more then previous year

The price of LBZ is quite the same with the information I got, while the prices we pay for Hekai and Naka are nearly 50% higher. No surprise since prices changes quickly. It's hard to blame farmer since there are too many rich people taking amounts of cash to the village asking for real LBZ. There's no reason for the farmers not to sell their maocha to the best offer. For customers, they are more willing to buy directly from farmers than from dealers since there are too much "LBZ"s out there and hard to tell which one is more close to real. That's the situation in tea villages these years. So I don't think price of LBZ will fall unless more and more drinkers realize that there are plenty of good puer tea other than LBZ, and we don't need to chase only after the most famous ones.

-----Boss is in tea mountain, and this is Tan on his behalf-----

[shah82]

Linda Louie mentioned on her facebook page about drinking Bingdao that sold for RMB 30k-50k/kg. Or something like $4.5k-9k/kg. Just to give you an idea about just how much of the good gushu is actually off the market for mortals.

[Catfur]

Linda Louie mentioned on her facebook page about drinking Bingdao that sold for RMB 30k-50k/kg. Or something like $4.5k-9k/kg. Just to give you an idea about just how much of the good gushu is actually off the market for mortals.

The sad thing is that the ultra rich that buy this stuff (and often do it with someone else's money, see the Long Jing thing), rarely enjoy it themselves. It gets gifted as a show of wealth. And likely not necessarily to someone who will enjoy it for what it is.