EOT 2011 Cakes

[heatwaves]

Does anyone know if the Essence of Tea will be making their own cakes again this year? I know that he now opened a storefront, so I'm not sure if he was able to make it to China this year. (I'm trying to budget the rest of my puerh purchases this year, so I'm trying to see if I need to set some aside for EOT).

[shah82]

I would think Nada would have to be in China now, like Jim, or about to leave. I also think that it is very unlikely that 2011 puerh will be especially affordable.

[AdamMY]

He was on the forum a few days ago, and while I did not inquire whether he was going to be pressing cakes, I did ask him if he is taking another trip to China soon, of which he said yes he is leaving for China soon. I do not know why Shah thinks the cakes will not be "especially affordable." It definitely will not be an amazing deal, and I think [young] puerh in general is loosing its incredible discount on a gram by gram basis from most other teas.

[shah82]

Alright, what is an especially not a good deal to you?

[AdamMY]

Alright, what is an especially not a good deal to you?

Let me just say that I think the days of being able to buy a standard Dayi Recipe cake of puerh for 2 cents a gram or less is long gone. Now that puerh is a bit more mainstream in terms of tea across the entire world, it now is put on a similar scale to other teas, where it is almost unheard of to be able to buy good quality tea for under 10 cents a gram. The truth is I will not be surprised to eventually seeing Standard recipe Dayi cakes selling for 30+ dollars per cake, do I think they will be worth it is another question. But the fact is people tend to forget the fact that puerh is usually sold roughly 300-400 grams at a time, and instead compare the price of a puerh cake to 100 grams of just about any other tea (green, oolong, white, etc.). Do I ever think most puerh will match most oolongs or green teas on a price per gram basis, not really, or at least not for quite some time. But it is definitely not going to stay at 1/4th the price per gram compared to other teas.

[shah82]

I think Nada will go for more obscure places that still aren't cheap, like Man Nuo, so that he can sell 400g for $50 or more.

[heatwaves]

I'm still optimistic that puerh's price will fluctuate from year to year. Anecdotally, I don't see many people willing to ever shell out $30 for brand new Menghai cakes of standard recipes. It doesn't seem that YS's few $20+ 2010 Menghai cakes were selling as well as when they were half that price. If it ever came to that I think I'd select a cake or two of small-batch producers per year and rely on the "lifetime's worth" * that most of us probably have already.

* "Lifetimes worth" being the debatable amount

[apache]

I would think for standard big factory teas, the price would not go up that much quickly, as there are still lot of few years old cakes stored away after pu bubble, but do correct me if someone lives there and know the situation first hand. If you look at the price of 8582 after 2007, I don't think the price changed that much whether it is new or few years old. However, for any material which is not plantation leaves, I think the price would not come down if it is not going up.

This how I see it, even with a US $80 400g cakes, per session wise (5g of leaves) still cheaper than a cup of coffee in most places in UK (a cup of coffee set you back for £1.5!).

[nada]

All being well, I will press some cakes. I'm due to fly out on Thursday, with a week in Malaysia and a couple of weeks in Taiwan before making it to Yunnan for a month or so. From there it's on to Wuyi for a couple of weeks before returning home.

We spoke with a farmer in Nannuo last week. It looks like a repeat of last year's drought. It hasn't rained there for the last 3 months. He's hoping for rain soon!

This means... a later harvest than usual (probably early-mid April), less quantity of leaves available but more concentrated flavour and higher prices for the maocha

We'll see how this translates once we go to the tea mountains. Some rain in the next couple of weeks could change things a bit.

As usual we hope to press cakes from Nannuo along with some more out of the way places. Everything depends on the quality of the maocha.

[heatwaves]

Good news that you'll be keeping the cake production going this year. Bad news at the maocha prices. For what it's worth, I vote for a Bing Dao cake this year.

[nada]

mmm - BingDao - now you've got me thinking...

[bearsbearsbears]

We spoke with a farmer in Nannuo last week. It looks like a repeat of last year's drought. It hasn't rained there for the last 3 months. He's hoping for rain soon!

I've been keeping my eye on Jinghong weather forecasts, and it rained at least a few weeks, and it's hard to believe none of it hit Nannuo, next door. LOL.

[nada]

I've been keeping my eye on Jinghong weather forecasts, and it rained at least a few weeks, and it's hard to believe none of it hit Nannuo, next door. LOL.

I don't know - that's what he said. I guess I'll know a bit more when I get there. A few weeks of rain would be great. Do you know when it rained?

[bearsbearsbears]

I don't know - that's what he said. I guess I'll know a bit more when I get there. A few weeks of rain would be great. Do you know when it rained?

December 10-12
January 8-12, 17-19, 28
February 1, 18

[nada]

I'm not so sure that there's been much rain -

http://www.wunderground.com/history/wmo ... story.html

It looks like just a fraction of a cm of rain per month in Jinghong since last November and nothing in Feb/March. That's a pretty small amount of rain.

I guess this historical weather data doesn't matter too much anyway. It's the quality of the tea and the local people's crops that are more important.