It was mid october when I tried a cake I bought from a taiwanese merchant, this was my reaction: (examining the cake) “300 year old trees, yeah right, like the other thousand teas” (opening the cake) “ooh, it does smell nice and strong” (after a few cups) uh…this is very good, what is it? wrapper […]
The truth about old and ancient trees puerh
Yet again I see another tea cake sold at $100 claiming to be from “600-800-1000” year old trees. Yet we know there’s between 20 and 100 times as much tea produced claiming to be “old” or “ancient” than 100+ year old trees actually exist. How can this be? Some of this of course is outright […]
A guide to buying Puerh – high-end edition
In a guide to buying old puerh I talked about how to buy excellent tea, that’s to say T3. Please refer to Puerh tiers quality for a detailed explanation of the various tiers and the companion article The truth about old and ancient trees puerh to understand why most of the very top tea you […]
Puerh tiers quality explained
This essay comes from the confusion of seeing so many puerh classed as “old/ancient trees” with such different quality variety, this is an attempt to make sense of what’s really going on. Please see The truth about old and ancient trees puerh as a companion article explaining what all the claims of Old/Ancient/Gushu tree you […]
Get an in-depth Puerh education: Introducing Tea Adventures
We learn the most about Tea by drinking it, not so much by talking or reading about it. This is very intuitive, but with so much different tea available out there, how are we to know what we like and don’t? It’s an excellent practice to sit with the same good tea over and over, […]
Why aged puerh for tea ceremony / meditation
I believe Aged sheng puerh is the most suitable type of tea for tea ceremony / meditation / self-cultivation, here are a few reasons why (and one why not): 1 Ancient trees In Yunnan there are a lot of old trees (much more than anywhere else in the world), therefore puerh from old and ancient […]
Fake puerh, collectibles and the value of puerh
Yet again, I’m sampling some expensive aged puerh cakes and I fail to see what’s so good about them. Yet again, I feel like I wasted a morning drinking not-that-worthy tea and I come back to my personal favourite, and think again about how it’s one of the more affordable teas I have. The more […]
Tea ceremony starter guide
There’s a lot about the why tea ceremony in the website, this is a very basic “starter guide” for making your own Tea ceremony. It’s not meant to be complete or very technical (focuses more on the meditation aspect of Tea). If you have no idea where to start or if you know how to […]
On Panic buying “exclusive” Tea
It’s a fact that good Tea sells out often and rises in price every year, however there are many different ways in which tea vendors can release and talk about Tea, some of which make it seem more exclusive than it actually is and induce more panic buying. There will be new teas, and as […]
Old Puerh Price and Buying guide
This is what I wish somebody told me when I first realised how great but how hard to find old Puerh is and I started to buy it. This guide is general and concerns how to buy Tier 3 tea mostly, there’s a newer how to buy higher end aged puerh guide available too. As […]