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First of all, it was cold, last Winter was seen extra cold for almost everyone north or east, south or west, and secondly, Yunnan, including Xishuanbanna got little rainfall it was officially declared as a drought area. Supply and demand, you know the law.

I have suspected this for a while, because all available teas are much more expensive to buy now, and a lots of teas on my buy list were sold out!

So I applied a Chinese visa and booked myself a ticket, ready for the first 2010 great tea hunt!

What I have prepared is that a few good teas are waiting for me to grasp at a higher price. And our American Hao lives.]]> General http://www.puerhshop.com/blog/index.php?itemid=314 Sat, 27 Feb 2010 13:13:19 -0700 http://www.puerhshop.com/blog/index.php?itemid=312 IT IS is for drinking now, since it's too mild, with no guts to age well, a lots people said so.When I compared it against our American Hao 0801, I had to say I was kinda worried about our American Hao. Is it possible these total arbor material based teas got no future?

They share the same common characteristics when they are young: mild, sweet, showing little depth.

Only time can tell.

Today I found a 2003 Keyixing Yiwu Pu-erh Tea Cake and decided to give it a spin.

The first brew:
null

Wow, there is something in it! And it is nice.
]]> General http://www.puerhshop.com/blog/index.php?itemid=312 Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:07:50 -0700 http://www.puerhshop.com/blog/index.php?itemid=310
I take this as a great hobby, and I feel great when I am on it. You knew it when you found something worth to pursue.

Because it's extra cold this winter, I suspect we should have a great Spring harvest 2010!

]]> General http://www.puerhshop.com/blog/index.php?itemid=310 Fri, 8 Jan 2010 23:24:58 -0700 http://www.puerhshop.com/blog/index.php?itemid=307
Guess not.

I think we would spend most time to check our inventory, and taste same new teas along with our old stock. We got over 350 items to manage and growing.

Don't be surprised when you see some price adjustments, after all one year went by and our teas were aged better. What's the trend? you may ask.

There is only one direction to go: Up, and Up!]]> General http://www.puerhshop.com/blog/index.php?itemid=307 Tue, 22 Dec 2009 21:31:45 -0700 http://www.puerhshop.com/blog/index.php?itemid=302
This is the reason why people cannot believe the prices they found on Taobao.

For an ordinary Chinese Joe, his overhead is so low, so that he can afford to just add a dollar or two as his profit and still makes enough to pay all bills.

However, there is so many knock-ups and fakes in virtually any category, you could easily kiss your money and say good bye.

I opened my Taobao shop since Dec. 2008 to sell US military type uniforms (made in China,FYI), and it became such a booming business, the revenue had grown so fast that I could not keep it up with. I have earned 3 diamonds as a top seller. People bought some items I myself cannot even afford to wear.

However it took so much of my time to the extend I wanted to scale back!

I cannot handle it. But when I take a look at my US based business, it's a sharp contrast. Our jobs, our spending power, our dollar, Ouch, it's depressing.

On the other hand, I believe I could make a living in China by selling Pu-erh tea on Taobao if so I desired.


]]> General http://www.puerhshop.com/blog/index.php?itemid=302 Sun, 13 Dec 2009 14:33:13 -0700 http://www.puerhshop.com/blog/index.php?itemid=296
Now they shared one thing in common: they had been involved in the tea business and they had bought acres and acres of tea fields in Yiwu regions when the tea business was blooming in 2007.

Their fortune had been shrinked day by day, yet thousands still had to be spent to maintain the tea fields without any yield. Regrets, you bet. Well, at least they put up a brave face and an optimistic attitude towards this. The tide would turn one day and we did nothing wrong, they believed. Like late Henry Ford said "You bulit it, they will come".

Indeed, the tea fields they took control were among the most promising tea growing lands in Yunnan. No chemicals had ever applied to these fields since day one. In the past the weeds control had been a big problem, so they had to hire a few farmers to clean up the fields twice a year.

I was invited to tour these tea fields in any given day, and I promised to try their first harvest coming soon in 2010 Spring.
]]> General http://www.puerhshop.com/blog/index.php?itemid=296 Sat, 7 Nov 2009 08:54:23 -0700 http://www.puerhshop.com/blog/index.php?itemid=293
Then I went back to the tea shop I got my Rock Oolong Tea from two years ago, and asked for their best offerings. The Rock Oolong I bought from this shop was sold out a long time ago at Puerhshop.com, and it was cheerfully received by our clients.

We brewed at least 10 famous Rock Oolong teas, and I felt my taste buds suffering an indifference. Most Rock Oolong teas tasted just the same, sort like I had my ripen Pu-erh teas, they all tasted simuliar. One Rock Oolong called Bai Ji Guan (white chicken crown) caught my attention, it tasted a lots like a TieGuanYin, yet it was a Rock Oolong. So I said, 'I want this too'.

In the end, I selected about half a dozen Rock Oolong teas I thought I should purchase. 'Bring the bill, please', I asked the girl who performed the gongfu brewing for me for more than 3 hours.

When I set the sight on the bill, I was almost fainted! A small amount of 'white chicken crown' costed the same as all other 5 teas combined. It was a small fortune to pay for 'white chicken crown' as you would never believe it.

My face turned red, yes, I could pay for it, but I should not buy it! Based upon my calculation, 'white chicken crown' Rock Oolong would have to be priced more than $ 60 per 100 grams. I thought the same tasting profile could be had with TieGuanYin I just bought at one third of the price.

I told the girl to cross out the 'white chicken crown' since I could not afford it, while keeping a straight face.

I didn't believe in an expensive tea, no matter how good it was.

Five premium Oolong teas I bought were:

1. ShuiXian (Water Angel, Narcissus)
2. RouGui (Meat Cinnamon)
3. TieLuoHan (Iron Monk)
4. BanTianYao (Half Heaven)
5. Qilan (Green Orchid)
]]> General http://www.puerhshop.com/blog/index.php?itemid=293 Thu, 5 Nov 2009 13:19:24 -0700 http://www.puerhshop.com/blog/index.php?itemid=290
We sat down and had a couple of tasting sessions. The brewed tea was in light golden, the warm flavor with satisfactory layer coating on the tongue, slightly bitterness dissolved into sweetness in a few seconds.

Even it's not most amazing stuff, I decided to take some for a spin for our American Hao 0909. This was to say, we had added the Bada into our tea library.

Next two days saw us wandering in Pasha and Mengsong, where I had little luck to get anything worthwhile. Simply because I did not find the teas from these regions attractive enough to buy, we had made a few good teas from Bulang that were much better in quality and taste.

At the end of our journey we got enough raw materials to make American Hao 0906 to 0910 as follows:

0906 A blend tea from 2009 Spring Yiwu, and 2009 Fall Bulang
0907 A blend tea from 2009 Fall Nannuo and 2009 Fall Bulang
0908 2009 Pure Bulang Big Tree
0909 2009 Fall Pure Bada Big Tree
0910 2009 Spring Pure Nannuo Spring Big Tree

If you like some tasty, strong teas from 2009, we got them!]]> General http://www.puerhshop.com/blog/index.php?itemid=290 Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:30:29 -0600 http://www.puerhshop.com/blog/index.php?itemid=288 Bada tea region is a vast area that includes Xiding, Zhanglang, and Bada, northwest to Menghai.

We were going quickly to North from Menghai, then went up the mountain, at Xiding turned West. In a couple of hours, we were approaching Bada. Now I saw acres and acres of plantation tea fields along the county road with Menghai Tea Factory's marks all over them. Without any doubt, this was the place Menghai Tea Factory got most of their raw material.

After another half hour, we entered a little quiet village. When we asked a monk in red robe what's the name of the village, he answered 'Bada'.

We were surprised, since there was no tea trees at sight! We jumped off the car, and walked around the village, there was no sign of big tea trees against we had believed we would encounter a plenty of big, old tea trees.

When we moved forward through the village, we came across a guarded narrow gate by military, we were asked to present an ID and a permit to go Burma.

We begged "We merely search for teas".

"There is no tea out there, and you are not allowed to go there" was the answer. Apparently Burma was only 20-30 minutes away from this place.

So we had to turn back into the village.

We found there was a group of villagers playing card in a shop, we asked "where to find the big tea trees in Bada anyway?"

A villager told us we missed the place, we should find a Bulang village called Menglong somewhere north.

When we finally arrived at Menglong village, we were happy to meet a lots of big old tea trees.

]]> General http://www.puerhshop.com/blog/index.php?itemid=288 Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:20:53 -0600 http://www.puerhshop.com/blog/index.php?itemid=285
We went nuts on getting Spring production since most Fall harvest this year failed to our expectation.

Heading to Menghai, the first tea mountain was Nannuo, where we used to getting a lots of goodies at Half Slope Village. Without much hesitation, we picked up a few bags of Nannuo big tree materials, both from Spring and Fall. The Spring stuff was sharp and tasting, while the Fall stuff was sweet and fulfilling. I drove a hard bargain for a bag of premium Nannuo maocha the tea farmer refused to let it go for less in the Spring. We talked and talked, and promised to return next year for more of her good stuff, she finally gave in for a dollar less pre kilo. That's that.

We rushed to the tea factory we used to make our teas before closing, and unloaded the stuff. Then we checked in a hotel at famous 'Red Light' district where many girls were chasing for their business, smiling and waving at us.

Tomorrow was a long day, we ate, drank some and went sleep.]]> General http://www.puerhshop.com/blog/index.php?itemid=285 Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:24:15 -0600