Pu'erh (Puerh) Tea

[tywy_99]

Got my tea in the mail today!

 

It's tea time!!!......

[chilton747]

Got my tea in the mail today!

 

It's tea time!!!......

Coolllllllllllllll............................i am drinking one now

[chilton747]

Got my tea in the mail today!

 

It's tea time!!!......

Hey Ty, did you get the cooked or the uncooked????

[RLS]

I heard that earthquake yesterday struck right in the Pu'er Tea country. No doubt it will effect their prices.

[chilton747]

I heard that earthquake yesterday struck right in the Pu'er Tea country. No doubt it will effect their prices.

 

My wife just told me that it certainly will effect the prices. She just bought a lot of the pu'erh tea because the tv news in China said the prices would go way up.

[tywy_99]

Got my tea in the mail today!

 

It's tea time!!!......

Hey Ty, did you get the cooked or the uncooked????

The ebay link I got from a post Roger made earlier in this thread is the Pu Erh tea I brought. I don't know if it is cooked or not, Chilton. But here's the link.

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewIt...item=4452951321

 

Tell me what you think of it.

[chilton747]

Got my tea in the mail today!

 

It's tea time!!!......

Hey Ty, did you get the cooked or the uncooked????

The ebay link I got from a post Roger made earlier in this thread is the Pu Erh tea I brought. I don't know if it is cooked or not, Chilton. But here's the link

http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewIt...item=4452951321

 

Tell me what you think of it.

 

The tea I have is raw puerh. Another term for "cooked" is "ripened." I know that I have the raw because my wife told me this is what she sent. It also fits the descriptions of what I read. I think one sure fire way to tell is to look at the leaves after they have been in the water for a while. If they open up then it is raw. If they stay closed somewhat then it is ripened. To me it is unbelieveable how they can do so many thing to tea..

If you got the 500g for 28 bucks plus 8 bucks for shipping then that is a pretty good deal.

[tywy_99]

What a great guy! I received a bunch of pu erh tea from Steve (slw268) today. He sent a great selection of it, one brick is so beautiful, I would feel bad breaking it!...lol.

We made a deal; pu erh tea for a copy of my wife's book. I mailed the book this afternoon.

God bless you, Steve! Thanks so much!

[chilton747]

What a great guy! I received a bunch of pu erh tea from Steve (slw268) today. He sent a great selection of it, one brick is so beautiful, I would feel bad breaking it!...lol.

We made a deal; pu erh tea for a copy of my wife's book. I mailed the book this afternoon.

God bless you, Steve! Thanks so much!

 

What a perfect deal

[DMikeS4321]

My wife just told me that she is sending me a boat load of the early green tea that was just recently picked (first harvest). She is also sending me 1000gs of the Tou Cha tea. She said it costs 200 RMB to ship it all. Now I ain't about to tell y'all how much she paid for all of this. Wouldn't want anyone getting jealous

 

Hello Charles,

 

The green tea you are referring to is usually called 'Bai Cha' or 'White Tea'. It gets this name from the very light color and the fine, soft white hairs that cover the young leaf. The tea is traditionally from the first harvest, and it is the ONLY harvest of that tea for the entire year.

This harvest typically takes place sometime in March/April, depending upon climate and growing conditions. Once it's gone, it's gone for the entire year.

 

There are several varieties of white tea; 'long brow', 'silver peony' and others. White tea is my 2nd favorite (after pu'er) because it is the tea that first piqued my interest. White tea has been in the news lately as having some remarkable health benefits. It is also highest in polyphenols and catechins and naturally low in caffeine.

 

Bini ships in 10 kilo packages, 263.50 rmb total. This price includes 83.50 rmb for the first kilo and 20 rmb for each additional kilo. Shipping is by surface and I usually receive the packages in 4 to 5 weeks. It has to be packed well as the packages are subjected to some pretty harsh treatment.

 

Best Regards

[chilton747]

My wife just told me that she is sending me a boat load of the early green tea that was just recently picked (first harvest). She is also sending me 1000gs of the Tou Cha tea. She said it costs 200 RMB to ship it all. Now I ain't about to tell y'all how much she paid for all of this. Wouldn't want anyone getting jealous

 

Hello Charles,

 

The green tea you are referring to is usually called 'Bai Cha' or 'White Tea'. It gets this name from the very light color and the fine, soft white hairs that cover the young leaf. The tea is traditionally from the first harvest, and it is the ONLY harvest of that tea for the entire year.

This harvest typically takes place sometime in March/April, depending upon climate and growing conditions. Once it's gone, it's gone for the entire year.

 

There are several varieties of white tea; 'long brow', 'silver peony' and others. White tea is my 2nd favorite (after pu'er) because it is the tea that first piqued my interest. White tea has been in the news lately as having some remarkable health benefits. It is also highest in polyphenols and catechins and naturally low in caffeine.

 

Bini ships in 10 kilo packages, 263.50 rmb total. This price includes 83.50 rmb for the first kilo and 20 rmb for each additional kilo. Shipping is by surface and I usually receive the packages in 4 to 5 weeks. It has to be packed well as the packages are subjected to some pretty harsh treatment.

 

Best Regards

 

Howdy Mike,

 

Yes indeed it is the white tea and it tastes ohh so good. I got 8.5 kilos of the white and 1 kilo of the pu'erh. My wife tells me to drink the white in the summer as it cools the body and drink the pu'er when it turns cooler outside as it warms the body.

 

The box she ships it in is usually pretty much roughed up that's for sure but it arrives safely. She worries about it getting hot during the voyage but it is good when it gets here. The best thing about it is that it is hand dried and put into bags and off it goes straight to my house. She grew up in Jiangxi and this tea comes from Mt Lushan. They call it the Cloud tea.

Now I am chatting with her and enjoying my nightly cup of night tea with the blue flower. mmmmmmmmmmm good

[DMikeS4321]

My wife just told me that she is sending me a boat load of the early green tea that was just recently picked (first harvest). She is also sending me 1000gs of the Tou Cha tea. She said it costs 200 RMB to ship it all. Now I ain't about to tell y'all how much she paid for all of this. Wouldn't want anyone getting jealous

 

Hello Charles,

 

The green tea you are referring to is usually called 'Bai Cha' or 'White Tea'. It gets this name from the very light color and the fine, soft white hairs that cover the young leaf. The tea is traditionally from the first harvest, and it is the ONLY harvest of that tea for the entire year.

This harvest typically takes place sometime in March/April, depending upon climate and growing conditions. Once it's gone, it's gone for the entire year.

 

There are several varieties of white tea; 'long brow', 'silver peony' and others. White tea is my 2nd favorite (after pu'er) because it is the tea that first piqued my interest. White tea has been in the news lately as having some remarkable health benefits. It is also highest in polyphenols and catechins and naturally low in caffeine.

 

Bini ships in 10 kilo packages, 263.50 rmb total. This price includes 83.50 rmb for the first kilo and 20 rmb for each additional kilo. Shipping is by surface and I usually receive the packages in 4 to 5 weeks. It has to be packed well as the packages are subjected to some pretty harsh treatment.

 

Best Regards

 

Howdy Mike,

 

Yes indeed it is the white tea and it tastes ohh so good. I got 8.5 kilos of the white and 1 kilo of the pu'erh. My wife tells me to drink the white in the summer as it cools the body and drink the pu'er when it turns cooler outside as it warms the body.

 

The box she ships it in is usually pretty much roughed up that's for sure but it arrives safely. She worries about it getting hot during the voyage but it is good when it gets here. The best thing about it is that it is hand dried and put into bags and off it goes straight to my house. She grew up in Jiangxi and this tea comes from Mt Lushan. They call it the Cloud tea.

Now I am chatting with her and enjoying my nightly cup of night tea with the blue flower. mmmmmmmmmmm good

 

Wow, I'm jealous. Bini won't be up for another couple of hours. We usually do our chatting early afternoon and late night, her time. She has a little side business in the evenings and we stay up late so she sleeps in.

[Don]

Wow, i have not spent enough time on this site. I did not know we had so many interesting topics to talk about.

 

I also love Puerh tea. Ping is having me bring her collection over from China every trip i make. Last time i moved many kilos back of cooked and raw. our raw tea is still only 8 years or younger, so we do not drink it very much. We really need to give it more time. She lived in Jinghong near the big Puerh mountains, and her work or others would often give special presents of good tea bricks. She and many other have bought the tea with the hope of it really going up. Many people in Jinghong have a stock of tea that they hope to sell in 10 years. In this area many are putting a large chuck of their saving into tea right now. I know it is about half as expensive to a local in Jinghong than in Kumming and Kumming is about half of what you will pay in Shanghai for the good quality tea. The Taiwanese and Hong Kong tea broker are the ones buying all the tea from Xishuangbanna (Jinghong is the county seat).

 

Xishuangbanna is a very nice place visit, go, have fun and drink the tea.

[rogerluli]

Of All the Tea

In China, 'Puer'

Is the Hottest

With Prices Near a Peak,

Some See a New Bubble;

 

ZHUHAI, China -- In this booming economy, the latest investment fad has everything to do with the price of tea in China.

 

More precisely, it has to do with the price of puer.

 

A type of tea commonly pressed into Frisbee-shaped cakes, puer (pronounced "poo-ahr"), was long the domain of a small group of tea collectors. Earlier this year, speculators discovered the tea, driving up its value.

 

 

Hong Kong collector Bai Shuiqing, 52, prepares cups of 100-year-old puer tea.

Puer, with a medicinal flavor and smoky aftertaste, improves with age unlike other teas that grow stale. Sellers claim it aids weight loss and lowers blood pressure.

 

The price of one of the hottest varieties of puer soared to nearly $35-a-cake this past April, seven times the $5-a-cake value just three years ago. Today, a cake of puer sells for nearly $16, a 60% backslide from the peak, fueling fears of a crash.

 

Puer's popularity reflects how China, awash in cash and slim on investment outlets, is primed for speculation of even the most ordinary -- or unexpected -- assets.

 

The puer boom spurred 45-year-old Yunnan native Zhang Bing to open a puer exchange in June to help traders find willing buyers and sellers. The exchange, lined with shelves of puer cakes, doubles as a meeting place for a puer club Mr. Zhang started last month.

 

"It's just like stocks," said Mr. Zhang, eyeing the latest puer price fluctuations on a flat-screen TV mounted by the doorway of the new exchange.

 

Such efforts are frowned upon by collector Bai Shuiqing, 52, who is so well-known in the industry that his autograph appears on commemorative cakes of puer. Mr. Bai says he already has the "guanxi," or connections, to sell his tea.

 

Mr. Bai is reluctant to talk about the value of his puer, saying he collects it for its taste, not its monetary value. Still, he estimates his 56 cakes of 100-year-old puer are worth about $640,000. He has two 150-year-old cakes whose value he declines to discuss. Last year, Mr. Bai started selling hand-selected cakes of puer marketed under his name.

 

At his vast tea warehouse in Hong Kong, Mr. Bai picked up a small piece of the tea, broken from its original cake, and placed it in an earthen teapot engraved with his name. He poured hot water in to rinse the leaves, discarding the first infusion, in what is called "awakening" the tea, and poured the second into a small, clear serving pot.

 

"Smell this," he said, beaming, and held out the steaming pitcher of clear brandy-colored liquid, a hue indicative of well-aged puer. "This is the best tea in the world."

 

 

Mr. Bai says he can divine the age of his puer by taste alone. Still, he keeps the authentication papers for each cake carefully sealed in plastic.

 

Like wine, puer is judged by vintage. At the top of the scale are 150-year-old cakes that can fetch more than $13,000. Newly minted cakes -- which taste bitter and strong compared with aged ones -- range from $13 to $25. Ideally, puer should be stored in airy, humidity-controlled rooms, away from sun and pungent odors that might penetrate the leaves.

 

Puer, once a gift for emperors, was long relatively unknown in mainland China. Even in Yunnan, where the tea is cultivated, locals preferred plain old green and black tea.

 

But puer's popularity in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Guangzhou trickled to the mainland around 2004, stirring interest among consumers. Sensing a tourism peg, the local Yunnan government in 2005 sponsored an unusual publicity campaign for the tea in a modern-day version of the caravans that once plied trade routes to Beijing.

 

The caravans were stocked with puer from Yunnan tea companies that co-sponsored the event. The procession made promotional stops in major cities along the route to the capital. The voyage was broadcast on TV, anchored by Zhang Guoli, a famous actor best known for his role as Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, the era from which puer dates.

 

Puer's popularity skyrocketed, and the elite crowd of puer connoisseurs was joined by newcomers who possess neither their expertise nor their devotion to it. A 150-year-old cake of puer went on a promotional tour of the country in March, starting from the Forbidden City in Beijing. It arrived in Yunnan province later that month in the city of Simao, which had changed its name to Puer to help promote tea sales. The tour was sponsored by the city's government, which billed it as a homecoming for the tea.

 

The Yunnan government recently named puer one of the region's 10 prized cultural resources. In Beijing, puer cakes were marketed as a replacement for traditional moon cakes during the recent mid-autumn festival. Puer is cropping up in restaurants, which display prized vintages like a wine list. Exclusive clubs are opening in Beijing and Guangdong, where the rich gather to drink the tea and learn about its history.

 

Businessmen armed with cash were elbowing for puer by the case (each case contains 84 cakes). Tea leaves are being hoarded. It used to take weeks for the first batch of puer to sell out, according to Scott Wilson, a tea seller based in Kunming. This year, by the time it arrived in town, the entire stock was sold out.

 

Mainland Chinese tourists, toting magazines that chart the value of name-brand puers, visited Hong Kong tea shops to buy out entire stocks of recommended tea, says Henry Yeung, managing director of Sunsing Tea House in Hong Kong.

 

"They don't know anything about tea," sniffs Mr. Yeung, 30. Like others in the old-school puer crowd, he says novices, clueless about how to select and store quality puer, are likely to be duped by fakes.

 

Counterfeiters have printed knockoffs of popular labels, prompting one maker, Menghai Tea Factory, to employ Chinese money-printing technology to make its wrappers hard to duplicate. The company also set up a hotline for tipsters and established an investigative team to track suspects.

 

Other factories have cut production of regular green and black tea. Farmers are mixing in lower-quality leaves to puer harvests to artificially boost production. Long-time puer drinkers such as Mr. Yeung turn up their noses at the 2007 vintage, which they say is poor quality.

 

The boom has set off a wave of conspiracy theories on how it began. Some distributors whisper it started after one company withheld supplies to create the illusion of demand. Others posit that greedy businessmen hired imposters to bid up prices on their stocks of puer.

 

Tea industry officials fret about a crash. Still, current values are more than double what they were a year ago.

 

Farmers could be among the hardest-hit from a bust. Industry watchers say that thanks to puer, this year marks the first time tea farmers -- many of whom are ethnic minorities living on the southern Chinese border -- have made a livable wage. The broad-leaf trees that produce puer take three years to mature, meaning farmers who have invested in tea trees are gambling that prices will stay high.

 

Collectors like Barry Tam aren't worried. This year, the 33-year-old who lives in Hong Kong bought a 100-year-old puer cake for about $13,000 and says he sold it six months later for double that. If the bottom should fall out of the puer market, reasons Mr. Tam, "even if I cannot sell it, I'll drink it."

[Don]

Of All the Tea

In China, 'Puer'

Is the Hottest

With Prices Near a Peak,

Some See a New Bubble;

 

ZHUHAI, China -- In this booming economy, the latest investment fad has everything to do with the price of tea in China.

 

More precisely, it has to do with the price of puer.

 

A type of tea commonly pressed into Frisbee-shaped cakes, puer (pronounced "poo-ahr"), was long the domain of a small group of tea collectors. Earlier this year, speculators discovered the tea, driving up its value.

 

 

Hong Kong collector Bai Shuiqing, 52, prepares cups of 100-year-old puer tea.

Puer, with a medicinal flavor and smoky aftertaste, improves with age unlike other teas that grow stale. Sellers claim it aids weight loss and lowers blood pressure.

 

The price of one of the hottest varieties of puer soared to nearly $35-a-cake this past April, seven times the $5-a-cake value just three years ago. Today, a cake of puer sells for nearly $16, a 60% backslide from the peak, fueling fears of a crash.

 

Puer's popularity reflects how China, awash in cash and slim on investment outlets, is primed for speculation of even the most ordinary -- or unexpected -- assets.

 

The puer boom spurred 45-year-old Yunnan native Zhang Bing to open a puer exchange in June to help traders find willing buyers and sellers. The exchange, lined with shelves of puer cakes, doubles as a meeting place for a puer club Mr. Zhang started last month.

 

"It's just like stocks," said Mr. Zhang, eyeing the latest puer price fluctuations on a flat-screen TV mounted by the doorway of the new exchange.

 

Such efforts are frowned upon by collector Bai Shuiqing, 52, who is so well-known in the industry that his autograph appears on commemorative cakes of puer. Mr. Bai says he already has the "guanxi," or connections, to sell his tea.

 

Mr. Bai is reluctant to talk about the value of his puer, saying he collects it for its taste, not its monetary value. Still, he estimates his 56 cakes of 100-year-old puer are worth about $640,000. He has two 150-year-old cakes whose value he declines to discuss. Last year, Mr. Bai started selling hand-selected cakes of puer marketed under his name.

 

At his vast tea warehouse in Hong Kong, Mr. Bai picked up a small piece of the tea, broken from its original cake, and placed it in an earthen teapot engraved with his name. He poured hot water in to rinse the leaves, discarding the first infusion, in what is called "awakening" the tea, and poured the second into a small, clear serving pot.

 

"Smell this," he said, beaming, and held out the steaming pitcher of clear brandy-colored liquid, a hue indicative of well-aged puer. "This is the best tea in the world."

 

 

Mr. Bai says he can divine the age of his puer by taste alone. Still, he keeps the authentication papers for each cake carefully sealed in plastic.

 

Like wine, puer is judged by vintage. At the top of the scale are 150-year-old cakes that can fetch more than $13,000. Newly minted cakes -- which taste bitter and strong compared with aged ones -- range from $13 to $25. Ideally, puer should be stored in airy, humidity-controlled rooms, away from sun and pungent odors that might penetrate the leaves.

 

Puer, once a gift for emperors, was long relatively unknown in mainland China. Even in Yunnan, where the tea is cultivated, locals preferred plain old green and black tea.

 

But puer's popularity in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Guangzhou trickled to the mainland around 2004, stirring interest among consumers. Sensing a tourism peg, the local Yunnan government in 2005 sponsored an unusual publicity campaign for the tea in a modern-day version of the caravans that once plied trade routes to Beijing.

 

The caravans were stocked with puer from Yunnan tea companies that co-sponsored the event. The procession made promotional stops in major cities along the route to the capital. The voyage was broadcast on TV, anchored by Zhang Guoli, a famous actor best known for his role as Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, the era from which puer dates.

 

Puer's popularity skyrocketed, and the elite crowd of puer connoisseurs was joined by newcomers who possess neither their expertise nor their devotion to it. A 150-year-old cake of puer went on a promotional tour of the country in March, starting from the Forbidden City in Beijing. It arrived in Yunnan province later that month in the city of Simao, which had changed its name to Puer to help promote tea sales. The tour was sponsored by the city's government, which billed it as a homecoming for the tea.

 

The Yunnan government recently named puer one of the region's 10 prized cultural resources. In Beijing, puer cakes were marketed as a replacement for traditional moon cakes during the recent mid-autumn festival. Puer is cropping up in restaurants, which display prized vintages like a wine list. Exclusive clubs are opening in Beijing and Guangdong, where the rich gather to drink the tea and learn about its history.

 

Businessmen armed with cash were elbowing for puer by the case (each case contains 84 cakes). Tea leaves are being hoarded. It used to take weeks for the first batch of puer to sell out, according to Scott Wilson, a tea seller based in Kunming. This year, by the time it arrived in town, the entire stock was sold out.

 

Mainland Chinese tourists, toting magazines that chart the value of name-brand puers, visited Hong Kong tea shops to buy out entire stocks of recommended tea, says Henry Yeung, managing director of Sunsing Tea House in Hong Kong.

 

"They don't know anything about tea," sniffs Mr. Yeung, 30. Like others in the old-school puer crowd, he says novices, clueless about how to select and store quality puer, are likely to be duped by fakes.

 

Counterfeiters have printed knockoffs of popular labels, prompting one maker, Menghai Tea Factory, to employ Chinese money-printing technology to make its wrappers hard to duplicate. The company also set up a hotline for tipsters and established an investigative team to track suspects.

 

Other factories have cut production of regular green and black tea. Farmers are mixing in lower-quality leaves to puer harvests to artificially boost production. Long-time puer drinkers such as Mr. Yeung turn up their noses at the 2007 vintage, which they say is poor quality.

 

The boom has set off a wave of conspiracy theories on how it began. Some distributors whisper it started after one company withheld supplies to create the illusion of demand. Others posit that greedy businessmen hired imposters to bid up prices on their stocks of puer.

 

Tea industry officials fret about a crash. Still, current values are more than double what they were a year ago.

 

Farmers could be among the hardest-hit from a bust. Industry watchers say that thanks to puer, this year marks the first time tea farmers -- many of whom are ethnic minorities living on the southern Chinese border -- have made a livable wage. The broad-leaf trees that produce puer take three years to mature, meaning farmers who have invested in tea trees are gambling that prices will stay high.

 

Collectors like Barry Tam aren't worried. This year, the 33-year-old who lives in Hong Kong bought a 100-year-old puer cake for about $13,000 and says he sold it six months later for double that. If the bottom should fall out of the puer market, reasons Mr. Tam, "even if I cannot sell it, I'll drink it."

 

This is very interesting. Good thing we plan to drink our stock. The cooked Puerh teas do not increase in value as they get older. They should be drank fairly quickly. The raw tea should be aged at least 10 and perferable 20 years before drinking.

 

A lot of speculation in the market, but if you buy it in Jinghong the value should remain even if the markets in Hong Kong and Taiwan drop a lot. The price in Jinghong is much lower to begin with and if you have a friend they should be able to get you good quality. Quality tend to keep its value no matter what.