There are generally two ways of acquiring aged tea.
Firstly, by collecting young teas over time, storing them, and enjoying them as they reach maturity.
Secondly, by sniffing out aged teas in shops, through friends, fellow collectors, and buying or trading in order to build up a stash for immediate enjoyment.
Obviously, the second route can be costly, with the Pu-Erh craze of recent years, and dwindling stocks in the market of quality aged tea. So, is this a dilemma for all you Pu-Erh drinkers and collectors?
I myself have been tackling this question with regards to my own drinking and collecting habits, as the two seem symbiotic in many ways. There is always that yearning to brew and taste some of the esteemed teas such as aged 7542/7532, Iron Beengs, Yellow Marks etc and there is always that voice in the back of one's head, whispering that one should be patient, frugal and sensible and stock one's own tea for the future.
So I've been trying to find a happy median. For every tong of young tea that goes into the 'store', I try to find a beeng of the aged stuff that fits into budget and works with my palate. We are lucky here in Malaysia that there are still stocks of vintage or 'masterpiece' tea still available provided one is willing to bear the cost of such acquisitions. Or if one is really fortunate, one would have a friend or family member who has stocks of old tea, and via occasional sessions, one gets the chance to sample such special teas.
I guess the question behind this post is to ask, how do you balance your collecting, and whether you do seek out some quantity of old teas to augment the stash that's lovingly maturing and waiting it's time in the pot?
i am feeling very much like a deprived child now thanks.
i have been afforded no such graces in my southern red headed step child up bringing. i can only make up for it with my own acquisitions be them old or new and then and only then can i look forward to such a thing you describe.
being an American, one that has no formal training in either the home or any type of school for tea, one can only grasp at the butterflies in fear of destroying them. the Chinese art of tea is so delicate in its methods and rituals that one must seek out old tea to be able to form a base to learn. one can only assume that readily accessible tea of fine age will increase ones ability to do so but in agreement this is a difficult and costly endeavor. one needs to do this in order to understand the butterfly. and as agreed the caterpillar needs to be sought too. for as in the butterfly and its beauty it acquires with age the caterpillar too has its lessons to teach. both forms of the same thing one of which can not exist without the other. so one must do this and bare the price and hope to see new butterflies for right now there seems to be more caterpillars around. it is spring you know.
i have been afforded no such graces in my southern red headed step child up bringing. i can only make up for it with my own acquisitions be them old or new and then and only then can i look forward to such a thing you describe.
being an American, one that has no formal training in either the home or any type of school for tea, one can only grasp at the butterflies in fear of destroying them. the Chinese art of tea is so delicate in its methods and rituals that one must seek out old tea to be able to form a base to learn. one can only assume that readily accessible tea of fine age will increase ones ability to do so but in agreement this is a difficult and costly endeavor. one needs to do this in order to understand the butterfly. and as agreed the caterpillar needs to be sought too. for as in the butterfly and its beauty it acquires with age the caterpillar too has its lessons to teach. both forms of the same thing one of which can not exist without the other. so one must do this and bare the price and hope to see new butterflies for right now there seems to be more caterpillars around. it is spring you know.
Hi coloradopu. Your aphorism using the butterfly and caterpillar is an apt metaphor for describing the dilemma as such.
As a western educated oriental (that's hilarious) I only came to be conscious of tea and its associated 'art' forms recently. For too many a year, it was simply taken for granted that we, ethnic Chinese people, drink tea. From an early age, we simply sat down in restaurants and called out for our favourite teas to be brewed with our meals, sometimes to great debate before the meal starts.
When tea sessions were observed and partaken in, it wasn't a concern to talk about which factory had made a tea, or region or how it had been stored. We were only concerned with whether it made a good drink or not, and what the tea's effects were on and in the body. When it came to Pu Erh, we drank almost exclusively old tea. Just don't ask me where it came from.
With Pu Erh, it's a different ballgame entirely. From wine drinker's background, one emerges to find strong parallels in the tasting and collecting habits, albeit with even more mystique surrounding wine, due to the seemingly impenetrable aura surrounding Pu Erh.
So while the stores of the past are depleting, I am out seeking to procure whatever stocks that may exist, hopefully to last me till my own cocoons crack and complete their metamorphoses.
What are some of the teas you have managed to secure, given the difficulty with which they are to come by??
As a western educated oriental (that's hilarious) I only came to be conscious of tea and its associated 'art' forms recently. For too many a year, it was simply taken for granted that we, ethnic Chinese people, drink tea. From an early age, we simply sat down in restaurants and called out for our favourite teas to be brewed with our meals, sometimes to great debate before the meal starts.
When tea sessions were observed and partaken in, it wasn't a concern to talk about which factory had made a tea, or region or how it had been stored. We were only concerned with whether it made a good drink or not, and what the tea's effects were on and in the body. When it came to Pu Erh, we drank almost exclusively old tea. Just don't ask me where it came from.
With Pu Erh, it's a different ballgame entirely. From wine drinker's background, one emerges to find strong parallels in the tasting and collecting habits, albeit with even more mystique surrounding wine, due to the seemingly impenetrable aura surrounding Pu Erh.
So while the stores of the past are depleting, I am out seeking to procure whatever stocks that may exist, hopefully to last me till my own cocoons crack and complete their metamorphoses.
What are some of the teas you have managed to secure, given the difficulty with which they are to come by??
thanks i just could not resist because of the caterpillar that was giving one of my dogs a hard time. it was one of those "well that makes since" things.
as for the stores of tea well i am like an egg on a leaf still waiting to hatch and eat leaf. i do have some but not that old 9-10 years or so. but i do agree with you about the difficulty . there are quite a few aphorisms one can come up with using the butterfly for this and another that comes to mind is the time i heard of the butterflies that mimic each other to gain some benefit. i think it is a type like the monarch which is not really a monarch but looks like it to get some benefit or project some attribute of the real thing. ha! so you see butterflies can be deceiving so as with most old teas. this is my dilemma as i sit on the leaf and wait to hatch. i can only hope that the one that put me here knows the leaf and that it will help me grow and make that transformation. and this is were an American born and raised must come to trust in the butterflies and not be fooled by the moths.
as for the stores of tea well i am like an egg on a leaf still waiting to hatch and eat leaf. i do have some but not that old 9-10 years or so. but i do agree with you about the difficulty . there are quite a few aphorisms one can come up with using the butterfly for this and another that comes to mind is the time i heard of the butterflies that mimic each other to gain some benefit. i think it is a type like the monarch which is not really a monarch but looks like it to get some benefit or project some attribute of the real thing. ha! so you see butterflies can be deceiving so as with most old teas. this is my dilemma as i sit on the leaf and wait to hatch. i can only hope that the one that put me here knows the leaf and that it will help me grow and make that transformation. and this is were an American born and raised must come to trust in the butterflies and not be fooled by the moths.
Moths indeed!! Being fooled by moths can be equated to paying high tuition fees, an experience I'm sure many of us are well versed with.
It's getting late here, almost 1.15 in the am, so I'll try to make sense:
I have considered making small pilgrimages to known tea hoarding location to either sample or procure, preferably both, some 'milestone' teas. Various locations here in Malaysia have such reputations but it's seeking out the hoarders that is so difficult. Believe it or not, some of these people actually size up your character and your intentions while deciding whether to allow their teas to pass into your hands.
Why not plan a holiday to tea-rich destinations?
To date, I have some 'old stocks' of Pu Erh gathered from kind friends and family, along with some that I have purchased. The 'gathered' teas are of unknown provenance, but they clear kick the collective asses of many of the purchased teas, some of the latter being well aged and stored. The ones I've bought include early '90s 8892, some mid 80's 7572, and some unknown Menghai beengs from the mid 80s. But it's very difficult to stay away from the older teas!! So one continues to set aside change to add to the Aged Pu Erh Fund....
It's getting late here, almost 1.15 in the am, so I'll try to make sense:
I have considered making small pilgrimages to known tea hoarding location to either sample or procure, preferably both, some 'milestone' teas. Various locations here in Malaysia have such reputations but it's seeking out the hoarders that is so difficult. Believe it or not, some of these people actually size up your character and your intentions while deciding whether to allow their teas to pass into your hands.
Why not plan a holiday to tea-rich destinations?
To date, I have some 'old stocks' of Pu Erh gathered from kind friends and family, along with some that I have purchased. The 'gathered' teas are of unknown provenance, but they clear kick the collective asses of many of the purchased teas, some of the latter being well aged and stored. The ones I've bought include early '90s 8892, some mid 80's 7572, and some unknown Menghai beengs from the mid 80s. But it's very difficult to stay away from the older teas!! So one continues to set aside change to add to the Aged Pu Erh Fund....
sounds like a wonderful thing to live in the land of butterflies it is hard to say if such things might live here and flourish it is quite possible that putting such a beautiful thing here in a climate so dry might be bad for it. it is so dry here that static elec. build up is high enough that when i touch a tropical plant i keep by the door it shocks me. or is it the other way around. hope not . any who back to the butterfly : this dry air might shock it hard enough to cause great harm. i do have a micro environment in which they can survive but the trip might do irrespirable harm. i know there are ways to put them in hibernation but to remove something from its environment in which it has thrived just to enjoy its company is like removing the wings to see what makes it fly. its just an observation. i am shore it can be done but for me there is a lot more to keeping such an environment going due to the location i am in. when i become more sure by my observation of the caterpillars and there development then i will import more butterflies. until then i will hope for the kindness of the bee keepers to fertilize with the free samples. right now to date the oldest i have tried was 2 days from china a 1992 loose leaf wild tree. taste is good but it took 5+ steeps for the tea taste to win over age/storage. kind of wet but how am i supposed to be able to tell anything about a new genius of butterfly without knowing what the caterpillar looked like. still it was beautiful.
this has been a wonderful conversation and i really appreciate the sharing. i do believe it is in my future to visit the butterflies but allot must happen first to achieve that. i hope you find what you are looking for and hope the hoarders size up your character and deciding too allow their teas to pass into your hands. and i hope they realize that its not you getting the tea but the tea you.
good day
this has been a wonderful conversation and i really appreciate the sharing. i do believe it is in my future to visit the butterflies but allot must happen first to achieve that. i hope you find what you are looking for and hope the hoarders size up your character and deciding too allow their teas to pass into your hands. and i hope they realize that its not you getting the tea but the tea you.
good day
May 5th, '09, 16:14
Posts: 1633
Joined: Feb 15th, '08, 10:15
Location: Pennsylvania
I think buying dancong and wuyi oolongs has desensitized me on the cost of pu-erh...$20 for around 350g of tea seems like a great deal when the oolongs are $30+ for 100g...shogun89 wrote:Wow, the amount you 2 write is truly impressive. Anyway, aged tea is a little too expensive for me. I hate spending anything over $20 a cake, so that leaves me with young sheng, which is alright as I am quite contempt with young sheng.
May 5th, '09, 18:24
Posts: 155
Joined: Dec 21st, '08, 19:43
Location: Burke, VA
Contact:
JAS-eTea Guy
Was that phrase intentional or a slip of the tongue (so to speak)?shogun89 wrote:Wow, the amount you 2 write is truly impressive. Anyway, aged tea is a little too expensive for me. I hate spending anything over $20 a cake, so that leaves me with young sheng, which is alright as I am quite contempt with young sheng.
Cheers,
Steve
Good tea drinking,
Steve
Steve
entropyembrace wrote: I think buying dancong and wuyi oolongs has desensitized me on the cost of pu-erh...$20 for around 350g of tea seems like a great deal when the oolongs are $30+ for 100g...
US$20 for 350g is about normal for good young beengs. The Aged Tea market however, occupies a much higher bracket. For example, a 20 year old 7542 cake sells for around US$300 a beeng retail.
Some rare cakes of Iron Beeng from Menghai can fetch up to US$800.00 and after that one gets into the stratosphere of the Green/Yellow/Orange Marks.
Cheers,
LEE
May 5th, '09, 21:12
Posts: 1936
Joined: May 22nd, '06, 11:28
Location: Trapped inside a bamboo tong!
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hop_goblin
Simple, buy what you like and what you can afford regardless of age. If I can't afford a beeng of course samples are my obvious alternative. In regards to shengpu, I am done buying compulsively. I believe I have enough 5 year or younger shengpu to last me for awhile. I just can't afford to relinquish any space for the more mediocre or perinial big factory favorites. I tend to be quite discriminative now when I purchase for this reason - this is not to say that I don't buy a 24k plated piece of crap on occasion, it happens. In regards to buying aging pu, I tend to try to stock up on anything older than 2002 - of course only if I like it.
Patience is a virtue.
Patience is a virtue.
Don't always believe what you think!
http://www.ancientteahorseroad.blogspot.com
http://englishtea.us/
http://www.ancientteahorseroad.blogspot.com
http://englishtea.us/
May 5th, '09, 21:14
Posts: 1936
Joined: May 22nd, '06, 11:28
Location: Trapped inside a bamboo tong!
Contact:
hop_goblin
$20usd for a beeng is just the begining - meaning standard. Their are much more expensive beengs and they don't have to be aged.entropyembrace wrote:I think buying dancong and wuyi oolongs has desensitized me on the cost of pu-erh...$20 for around 350g of tea seems like a great deal when the oolongs are $30+ for 100g...shogun89 wrote:Wow, the amount you 2 write is truly impressive. Anyway, aged tea is a little too expensive for me. I hate spending anything over $20 a cake, so that leaves me with young sheng, which is alright as I am quite contempt with young sheng.
Don't always believe what you think!
http://www.ancientteahorseroad.blogspot.com
http://englishtea.us/
http://www.ancientteahorseroad.blogspot.com
http://englishtea.us/
May 5th, '09, 21:33
Posts: 1633
Joined: Feb 15th, '08, 10:15
Location: Pennsylvania
Haha, I think this is mess up number 3 of the day here on TeaChat. I swear School is messing with my brain in a negative way. What I meant to say was that I am quite content with young sheng.netsurfr wrote:Was that phrase intentional or a slip of the tongue (so to speak)?shogun89 wrote:Wow, the amount you 2 write is truly impressive. Anyway, aged tea is a little too expensive for me. I hate spending anything over $20 a cake, so that leaves me with young sheng, which is alright as I am quite contempt with young sheng.
Cheers,
Steve
May 5th, '09, 21:34
Posts: 1633
Joined: Feb 15th, '08, 10:15
Location: Pennsylvania
Yes I am aware that even $20 is cheap, However I find $9 Menghai offerings to be darn delicious, so that is the price I am used to paying, so $20, though cheap, is on the high end of my spectrum.Jedi wrote:entropyembrace wrote: I think buying dancong and wuyi oolongs has desensitized me on the cost of pu-erh...$20 for around 350g of tea seems like a great deal when the oolongs are $30+ for 100g...
US$20 for 350g is about normal for good young beengs. The Aged Tea market however, occupies a much higher bracket. For example, a 20 year old 7542 cake sells for around US$300 a beeng retail.
Some rare cakes of Iron Beeng from Menghai can fetch up to US$800.00 and after that one gets into the stratosphere of the Green/Yellow/Orange Marks.
Cheers,
LEE
Yeah.... they often do, especially when it comes to aged tea. Even more so if they are rare ones.Jedi wrote:Moths indeed!! Being fooled by moths can be equated to paying high tuition fees, an experience I'm sure many of us are well versed with.
I have considered making small pilgrimages to known tea hoarding location to either sample or procure, preferably both, some 'milestone' teas. Various locations here in Malaysia have such reputations but it's seeking out the hoarders that is so difficult. Believe it or not, some of these people actually size up your character and your intentions while deciding whether to allow their teas to pass into your hands.
Like Malaysia?? I'm sure we can work out a Tea Tour in KL and in PG... hhmm... *this is getting interesting*Jedi wrote:Why not plan a holiday to tea-rich destinations?
OOhhh yar.... they are worst than narcotics... ahahaha...Jedi wrote:But it's very difficult to stay away from the older teas!! So one continues to set aside change to add to the Aged Pu Erh Fund....
Cheers!!
