5 controversial topics in the Pu-erh tea business

Drinking tea is relaxing, but talking about tea unleashes passions, especially when you're a tea geek.
Here are five of my favorite topics to discuss when I meet tea professionals.
If you want to try good stuff, check our website: www.farmer-leaf.com/

[@666aron]

I agree that at the end of the day then only two deciding factors for a tea drinker is a subjective taste and the money that can (or can not) pay for it. There is a group of people on puerh reddit, who can't or don't want to understand why people drink young sheng. I say, how about they climb down their ivory tower and instead of preaching, let's accept each other and our different tastes. Also, if I want strong, I have young sheng, if I want mild and warming, I got shou. Anything older than 25y, I can't afford, so I have no opinion.

[@rolk9581]

Thanks very much for your well informed opinion. I appreciate your expertise and I have used it to purchase my first Puer cake, a Ban Zhang Organic PuErh Cake - 2008. I hope to enjoy this tea for a very long time! Cheers 👍

[@diganta2329]

Thank you for your light! 😊

[@vgamedude12]

Thanks to your videos and passion Puer has become one of my favorite teas. Thanks for spreading the magic of this wonderful tea.

[@christineyee2117]

Your videos are always interesting and informative, William. I love these deep dives into the industry!

[@pierrekingbkk]

Hi William, as a consumer and based in Thailand my only option is purchasing Pu-Erh tea is through Ali Baba express some of the cakes can be good others can be quiet ‘fishy’ in the taste. Thailand as little choice in tea quality and variety. Unfortunately during the rainy season humidity at home can be quite high up to 80% and need to seal the tea cakes into plastic bags . Tes VDO sont vraiment sympa! Continue, merci.

[@petereich1715]

Thank you for your experience and thoughts on this subject.

[@michelsamson3689]

Thank you I really enjoyed that overview---I like young Puerh for pretty much the same reasons you pointed out

[@imadeit]

I would be trully interested in ordering sample pack of your tea types. I’m starting my business in poland.

[@UliKaiser]

I’m not so much into Pu Erh, more into Oolongs and Blacks. I tried a couple of times and found some very strange, almost like a medicine. I would appreciate a recommendation to get into it better

[@wreagfe]

My recommendation would be to try some of William's young/sheng loose leaf (mao cha), both shengtai and gushu. The Jimgmai ones are floral, fragrant, and sweet. You can try different steeping times and water/weight ratios and find out what you like. As with many things, it takes time to appreciate puerh. And when you drink it long enough you'll get addicted to it anyways, so you'll care less what it tastes like. ;)

[@dujac88]

i love the green side of your sheng cha

[@BrucePSquirrelOfficial]

Hi. I just started watching your channel and became fascinated. I am looking to purchase from your website at some point. I was in an Asian grocery store and bought something to start with which is most likely mediocre compared to what you have available. I bought "Prince of Peace" Pu-erh. They described their process as "full oxidant (fermentation) process...". I couldn't find any real information on how long the fermentation was. Just wondering if you've had any experience with these 'lesser' teas.

[@VitaminCsk]

Excellent

[@slowteaorg]

And one thing about investment value: it really dramatically varies between types of puerh, of which I identify at least 4: 1) 100% pure ancient tree in elite single estate area (your mansong, bohetang, tianmenshan, laobanzhang etc etc) is going to get higher and higher, this is imho by far the safest bet for value appreciation. The amount is small enough and as every luxury becomes more competitive puerh is doing too. There's no price ceiling on the best of the best, unlike there is on average and even good. 2) antique tea is also going to get higher and higher for the same reasons (scarcity), but it's a minefield to buy, and there's no point in A) buying small amounts and B) from china (prices very high). Storage and fakes are big problems, it's a jungle for this category 3) dayi is *the* tea as investment vehicle and follows different rules completely (a bit of other famous teas like landmark productions from chen sheng hao, xiaguan, etc as well). 4) everything else - ??? probably follows most of what you're saying in the video. I actually am not so sure/interested about this area. Probably not a great investment, the only exception might be that menghai area tea improves the most in a space of 15-20 years so a reasonably priced menghai might be a thing you can buy a small quantity of to age

[@leeennise.a3338]

I agree about handmade puerh being better. BUT, I expect consistency in my oolongs, blacks, whites, & greens that maybe only a machine can produce year after year

[@iBuzzinga]

Thank God there's still difference of opinion :'D Would be a bland world indeed if everyone thought the same. My two cents: 1. I think a lot of vendors try to capitalize on 'gu shu', hollowing out the concept and flooding the market with 'fake' gu shu. 2. I wonder what the evolution of AI and robotics will bring to the table. Perhaps even recreate hand-made tea with the consistency of machine-made tea. Also if it will be cheaper because of machine-made or more expensive because it's 'hand'-made. 3. Same as my previous point. May be more processing experimentation will be possible by meticulously changing the parameters how the tea is made. 4. I've had low quality aged puerh and high quality fresh puerh. I'll always take high quality over age any day of the week. 5. Don't have an opinion, I have no interest in aging puerh myself :-) Great video once again, thanks William. Gave me food for thought.

[@TheCiastek63]

agreed on the gushu and ageing. I'd actually usually take freshly made raw pu-erh over one that's 3-5 years old, yet the second one will be more expensive in most stores. I think a lot of the pu-erh being made nowadays doesn't age particularly well and definitely not in only a couple of years. much of it is simply made to taste well now and has dubious ageing potential I wonder if this practice of increasing the price for every year of age will continue even when it often doesn't coincide with better tasting tea... seems to me like more and more people prefer fresh, high quality pu-erh and the more traditional drinkers may become a dying breed

[@wreagfe]

@@TheCiastek63 There supposedly is this phenomenon in puerh that the tea goes into some kind of puberty of weird/declining flavor after which the flavor picks up again. Afaik that puberty period is between 5-7 years depending on the tea and processing (greener tea ages slower).

[@slowteaorg]

I can't resist... I need to say a couple things about the young sheng controversy 1) The "pro" circle in taiwan drinks young sheng all the time and really doesn't care for older tea, particularly 80s-90s-2000s (too much taidi). While it's true many taiwanese would hold the view of young sheng = harsh on liver, it's not everywhere. I was actually quite shocked at the level of disdain some people showed an 88qb and the corresponding interest for a 6 months old gushu (yiwu) 2) The fact that you have drank young sheng for a long time without negative side-effects doesn't mean this will be true for everyone, some are (much) more sensitive than others! I have personally hurt my stomach (and secondarily liver) by drinking younger sheng (and not bad quality either) and I know a lot of other people that have as well. I can only comfortably tolerate 100% pure ancient tree yiwu in the 0-5 years age range (with stomach half full to full and on a warm day), and 5-10 years range quite similar (either big/old tree blend and some more areas). Sure I could drink other types of puerh, but they're not fully comfortable. I note there's no mention of whether puerh from banna is objectively "better" than outside (my thoughts on the matter are pretty clear), I think that's plenty controversial too! Thanks for the video William, very thought provoking. I'm particularly wondering about the difference of processing being a style vs actual quality. I think I have pretty clear ideas about both "pulong" and harsh puerh. Underpinning everything I said there's a basic fact I hardly see mentioned: everyone's body type (in a TCM sense) is different, and I believe our body type will strongly influence our taste in Puerh, whether its area, processing, level of aging... in other words the taste/experience we prefer is highly personal and it's very hard to imagine how other people taste/experience the same tea. That's not to say that quality doesn't exist or everything is just a matter of style, simply that there's at least 3-4 different body types (however you want to group them) and they will have quite different preferences. Outside weather/environment can also impact a bit, but not as much as body type. best wishes, Paolo

[@jacob.g.l1592]

I'm like 98% sure tea doesn't cause liver damage.