Context and concerns related to high quality level sheng pu'er

 

Two online discussions have approached this general subject, of sheng pu'er quality levels, from two completely different perspectives. Both map back to what I see as one concern in relation to tea enthusiasts naturally pursuing higher quality level tea experience over time, which also relates to other tea types.  

There is already a problem related to assumptions that are included, right?  How can we really define a higher quality level, or a general quality continuum?  Onto the end point instead, the main issue I'll map out isn't a serious problem that I'm concerned about, related to one outcome consideration, just the way a shift in trends in sheng pu'er demand and vendor offerings works out, which might become more extreme if current trends continue to shift in the present direction.  

Of course those starting point references will clarify how they are using that "quality" context, but this subject just came up in relation to a statement about oolongs in a comment on a post I made, so I'll start with that.  As background I was talking about the pleasant nature of a limited quality inexpensive tea, which does naturally lead towards questioning what the distinction is then, between pleasantness and quality level:

I use it [quality] as a broad blanket term with no clear meaning, not really even a clearly defined range of meaning. If I taste that shui xian beside a high quality wuyi yancha version a lot of specific meaning would come to mind. Such a tea would be more intense, complex, refined, and balanced, and it would brew cleaner from early rounds into a longer cycle of infusions than this one. One hard to grasp aromatic quality tends to stand out, a liqueur or perfume like aspect in better versions. But it's ok tea still, it's nice.

I see that as a discussion of "quality markers," aspects that naturally link to perceived higher quality for an individual tea type, even though it doesn't actually make that explicit.  It would vary by tea type, and different people might naturally see it as differing aspect sets per that tea type.  For sheng pu'er flavor range comes into play, with mouthfeel and aftertaste effect varying more than for other types.

A friend tried that tea that I was discussing, an oolong, and agreed that it was a lack of flaws that made it really stand out from what one would expect from that category, low cost wuyi yancha from a Chinatown shop. The character present was positive too, especially a nice inky mineral base and a tree bark sort of woody taste, with sweetness in a good level to balance the rest, and decent feel in relation to thickness.  But beyond that the experience was a bit general, not defined by significant inclusion of these kinds of "quality level" marker aspects.

Let's start with a discussion of pu'er types, quality levels, and cost, in this Reddit post, which is titled "So this is what straight edge rich people do," asking if pu'er interest replaces wine or drug consumption (more or less).  A comment there, cited in more complete form than is typical, defines quality context better, from an individual perspective on a mapping of levels: 

...here's my tier system (prices per gram):

0-5 cents: Aside from huge bulk buys I have yet to see anything aside from mass marketed tea that is low quality in every sense. I do not buy directly from Taobao or whatever. It is probably still very possible to find drinkable teas here if you know how to look.

5-15 cents: A gamble but you can find drinkable tea.

Up to 25 cents: You can get enjoyable tea from reputable vendors. The "daily drinker" marketing concept is probably right here for most people.

Up to 35 cents: Not very hard to find decent aged or otherwise "notable" teas in this range, but requires some connections or searching.

Up to 50 cents: Unless you are getting scammed, you should definitely be able to get some notable and exciting teas.

Up to a dollar per gram: There's still some overhyped tea here (as in all categories), but you can get most of whatever you might want in this range, aside from extremely hyped regions or very aged tea.

That "tier system" concept alone is problematic; there is just no way that typical experienced "objective quality level" teas would map over to clear cost-identified ranges like that.  If we shift that to a "good value" intended context instead, to what one might ordinarily be able to find, that represents good quality for that cost, then it becomes more consistent, and works better, it's just still problematic.  There would be a lot of less promising value range that isn't as good as it should be to fit into those defined ranges, related to those selling prices, and there would be another tail to the distribution, teas that are too good a value to fit in the normal category, really fairly competing with the next level up.

Does the rest seem to work, based on my own experience?  It's not so bad.  You have to correct the interpretation so much for "what is typical," versus actual sales offering range, that it almost relates to assuming that this works, and then squeezing experienced outcomes back to mapping to this division.  You have to do the same for preference, rounding off what you experience in relation to your own preference, and demand spikes affecting costs or limitations for individual types or versions, to get back to fitting this, so that only in the end do you find what you set out to look for by making a few adjustments.

Let's consider two examples, one in relation to some of the last teas I've been reviewing:

That's a recent Chawang Shop order (teas I actually bought), almost all sheng pu'er (one is shu), the type being discussed.  Right away a lot of people might see this example as invalid, because that vendor stores teas in Kunming, under relatively dry conditions, so to many people versions that are more than a year or two old are already compromised in relation to transition form.  Not just lack of appropriate degree of transition, but that is one potential interpretation, that it just preserves the teas, with another interpretation relating to the form of change being negative, not just slower.  I don't have a developed opinion to offer on this, just a guess, which I'll mostly leave out here.

I reviewed the Tulin Wuliangshan brick here, which works as a decent example.  I cited other reviews of the tea on Steepster (not necessarily a reliable reference, random input from tea drinkers with varying perspectives, with the same tea version but sold by another vendor), and none of them really liked it.  I did though; back to subjectivity being problematic.  It seemed like it had aged further after most of them had been trying it, and was entering an interesting character range, even though that aging process was unusually slow (it was nothing like a typical 12 year old tea).  That was selling for $10 / 100 grams, so on that person's tier system it should only be "drinkable," the second tier, but not yet "enjoyable," what he is explicitly framing as a daily drinker in that detailed comment.

Let's consider another range, before moving on, checking out Farmerleaf page offerings in relation to this matrix of cost to quality level, switched back to the topic of unaged / new / young sheng.  They are a reasonably well regarded sheng pu'er vendor, specializing in Jing Mai origin versions, that shifted focus on lower cost products to (presumably higher quality) higher cost versions around 5 years ago or so:

The range there is from $62 to $300 per 357 gram cake, 17 cents per gram to 84 cents per gram.  So that's back to the lower priced version--per that tier system comment--probably being enjoyable, if all went well, but not notable.  The more costly tea should be unusually "notable and exciting," beyond that of a 35 to 50 cent per gram range that's already at the minimum threshold of notable and exciting.

I'm not going to guess if those teas actually are like that; really so much subjective interpretation comes into play that it probably wouldn't be meaningful, especially for tea versions I've not tried.  I last ordered Farmerleaf teas maybe 3 or 4 years ago and one $90 cake example seemed pleasant, maybe not so much notable and exciting.  That actually works on this scale, putting it in between pleasant and unusually good or interesting in character, but not significantly related to the second.  

Presumably those teas are what well-informed tea drinkers expect in relation to that pricing, and compare reasonably well to what other vendors are offering.  Or again maybe specific styles come into play quite a bit, and demand per style, with a somewhat variable mark-up rate factoring in, so it's just not that simple.

Let's move on to the other citation to place this better, since what we are looking for in relation to quality levels hasn't clearly emerged yet in these references, limited to subjective impression only, relative pleasantness.

Peter Jones, manager of the Trident Bookseller and Cafe, recently posted these thoughts:

Most people seem to think they should only buy aged sheng puer, but that is a mistake. It limits their knowledge and understanding of the tea and the market. Buying sheng every year from the same farmer relationships allows one to gain a deeper understanding of why some sheng puers are priced the way they are and how the market sets the price. This year was a hit or miss harvest for many of the smaller villages and tea mountains in the Yiwu area, and in 5-10 years some of the smaller lots will command an incredible price due to specific factors from this spring. 

One example is Guoyoulin Gushu, which is located within a nature preserve. The harvest is only allowed to take place for 10 days, and rain and Covid impacted that time period. Here we are sampling the 2020 spring material, which is already outstanding. Young sheng can teach us many things that go beyond simply "flavor."

A few factors mentioned shed some light on this quality levels divide that haven't become explicit in the earlier content just yet:

-annual supply and demand shifts affect tea pricing, varying by type and local origin range.

-aged sheng and new sheng are two completely different subject ranges (already clear enough to anyone vaguely familiar with sheng pu'er, but the way the two pricing ranges relate to each other isn't as clear).  

-flavor isn't the only baseline for evaluating sheng pu'er.  Again anyone drinking sheng pu'er would already know this, but filling in what you personally value over time is a long process, probably a never-ending one, that varies by person.

-it takes a lot of exposure to sort out any patterns in pricing, related to what inputs cause what outcomes.  Fully identifying pricing inputs at any one level (eg. local wholesale maocha pricing) is probably all but impossible, and then it would be all the more complex to map out how varying mark-ups and pricing themes work out across end-customer outlets.  Just the local origin supply and demand part (input) would be hard to get any feel for, even in higher profile and more discussed cases, eg. in-demand village area cases.

-ideally aging potential is part of what people might value, or should value, another very complex factor to unpack. Two year old sheng is something else, not new or old, which under some conditions may be much better than brand new sheng, depending on the starting point.

Back to the broader analysis topic and breakdown, next one might consider other examples of what falls out related to better and worse value, which vendor sources are in the far tails for higher than standard range quality per price, or else lower.  For this discussion it works better to just set that aside, and arbitrarily accept that there is a normal range of vendors selling somewhat equivalent products and value versions.  

Quality level, origin, age, storage conditions input, and style really do affect what a standard market rate pricing should be, so it's complicated citing examples, since tasting the tea is necessary to identify some of what matters most related to that.  Considering a Trident sheng pu'er offering might help clarify that, a tea somewhat related to what Peter was discussing, just a different version also sold by them:

Is this slightly aged 200 gram cake a fantastic value, selling for $50, or is it only in a normal market range, or maybe a somewhat flawed tea that's not a great value at that rate?  Probably the first, per my guess, informed by trying other teas from them, but only through tasting that tea would one know, and even then developing good judgment to place sheng pu'er takes awhile to develop, and preferences vary by individual.

 

Going back to the first considerations, maybe it's all not as clear as that comment about tiers and standard character results described, and maybe preference throws off setting up such a structure, and value variations, but still there's something to that.  Higher demand teas do tend to sell for more, and there has to be some limited correspondence between preferences, quality level, and final consumer demand, with marketing branding another kind of related input.  But then vendors also definitely sell for better and worse value, over-hyping and overpricing mediocre tea in some cases, or selling at below market rates for high quality versions in others (but for sure the first paradigm is more common).

Where to go with all this, related to an ordinary exploration of sheng experience, and normal preference transitions?  Ordinarily people might pick a vendor like Yunnan Sourcing and first explore sheng pu'er by buying a good number of samples, whatever others happen to recommend, mixing cost levels, origin areas, ages of versions, and so on.  Then an organic exploration process would extend from there, related to whatever that person liked best, confined or relatively unconfined by budget concerns.  Only after that introduction phase could someone really interpret how good a version actually is, versus those other factors, style, local area typical character, etc.

The teas I mentioned buying were on the low price side, because of a self-imposed budget constraint (which my wife helps reinforce motivation for).  That introduces value issues as a priority.  People also tend to discuss sheng pu'er preference in relation to aged or relatively new versions, then origin areas, with a lot of reference to factors like tea plant age and natural arbor growth, and finally tied to experienced aspects they like or try to avoid, which to some extent should map to the rest.  Aging potential can be something of a guess and an afterthought but it could also factor in, or else it could be a primary concern, for many.

We might expect people to fall into a preference range related to their budget, and then stay there.  For people with an open budget they might experience a natural drift to higher and higher quality teas (or higher demand versions, which should correspond some).  Others could stick to a certain pricing level with the drift occurring in better and better sourcing approaches, getting better value for what they spend.  Here's that one point I wanted to add:

One overall concern is that social media influence pushes people to experience what others experience, and to value what they value, causing a general grouping based shift over time.  

If someone had very free budget to spend on tea they might buy the $300 and $268 cakes listed in that Farmerleaf page sample, to see what is so special about those, and looking for positive distinctions they might be more inclined to find them, than if tasting the teas without that bias entering in.  Then a status could adjoin that experience; they could post online about drinking teas that others couldn't afford to experience, back to the "what straight edge rich people do" context.  A 7 gram session of an 80-some cent per gram tea is still costing "only" $6 or so, back at Starbucks takeaway coffee range, but owning a half dozen $300 cakes adds up to an $1800 buy-in, which is where anyone on a more typical limited budget gets filtered out.

A different and moderate version could, and surely would, happen in relation to people wanting to experience what is valued by others in a more moderate price range, which could shift demand and available options as a broad shared preference, and then also standard pricing levels.

Getting into aged cakes brings up the same issues, and the same potential resulting divide between haves and have-nots.  Teas We Like stands out as a currently popular, well regarded curator source for aged Taiwan stored sheng pu'er, let's check a sample of their offerings:

To be clear their site is down for maintenance right now (when I wrote this first draft); that's from an April 2022 internet archive capture, which is what we would've seen clicking on the site a month ago.

The range seems to span from $165 up to $480, or just below 50 cents a gram up to well over $1 / gram.  Still, not bad for carefully selected and well transitioned (fermented) versions, given that lower level pricing is really more in the average price range for brand new Farmerleaf offerings (the $60 to $300 range sampled averages to $180, slightly higher).

Again, what's the point, the general takeaway?  With preference naturally shifting from moderate to higher quality sheng versions, which would apply across tea types, or from people experiencing limited aged versions (old Xiaguan tuos and such) onto more carefully selected, better versions sheng pu'er interest seems destined to guide normal interest towards a tea preference of 50 cents per gram or higher.  That would also map to style and type range preferences.  If broad demand patterns shift enough that pricing level would also shift, upward.  

It's odd how clearly that ties to what is portrayed as upper medium quality level tea, how the standard levels layering kind of does work.  This part is just hearsay that you can research for yourself, but upper medium quality level in-house Yunnan Sourcing new (young) sheng has settled to around a $100 per standard 357 gram cake range now, a pricing level that would've been unthinkable 5 years ago, when around half that was a standard norm.  30 cents a gram sheng is just normal now, somewhat notable per that one comment's scale, but still moderate in cost.

Is value dropping (quality level in relation to price), or are quality levels really escalating?  Maybe some of each.  Since I do accept that it's a mix of both, with higher demand pushing both, it's not accurate to simply say that it's unfair or opportunistic on vendor's sides, that markups or a spike in producer or reseller pricing are causing this.  You can still buy plenty of 20 cent per gram sheng that's still being sold ($30-some cakes), or $15 low quality Chinatown or Ebay cakes (at around 5 cents a gram).  Maybe it's more a concern that many of the $30 / standard cake offerings from 5 or 6 years ago are now replaced with a $50 and up range, that pricing for equivalent teas also goes up.  

I don't think the general increase is mostly about the same exact teas costing more though, it's that people group together in what they prefer, so higher demand for a narrow range can quickly increase pricing in that range.  It's probably more evident across a half dozen main Western facing vendors than across the broader range of what is out there.  More legitimate "gushu" is and has been selling for $1 / gram; a higher end isn't shifting as fast (or teas presented as such).  Then it's complicated how much more legitimate gushu is sold in relation to what is offered as such; maybe it's not so much.

It seems like I'm heading somewhere with all this, doesn't it, maybe to speculate that a consistent middle ground for good but not high-demand, trendy origin area and style teas might be a more natural end point for people to explore, than for sheng drinkers to accept that cakes just cost $80 to 100 now, or $150 and up for aged versions.  It seems like I might be narrowing a broad set of information towards a conclusion I already wanted to arrive at, if so.  Very little that appeared here suggested that there is a range of $50-60 more moderate sheng cakes out there to be experienced.  Even the Chawang Shop example required accepting relatively dry storage as a main input, a lower demand category, and the teas they sell priced at or under $50 per cake are on the way out of their stock, selling out and being replaced by others.  Their sales page, showing newer offerings:

The least costly of those cakes sells for $78 per 400 gram version, the next "cheapest" for $95 for that amount, and next a 200 gram cake at an equivalent cost of $116 (for the same amount, for two).

Again I don't doubt that Chawang Shop is sourcing better tea than they were 6 or 8 years ago, catering to a shift in preference and demand, and general acceptance of cakes costing $90 instead of $40, for better tea versions.  Why wouldn't vendors move to catering to a higher quality demanding customer base, since surely profit per cake must be higher, with overhead costs staying similar to before?

I'm not cherry-picking the costliest range or most extreme examples of pricing shifts to serve some sort of narrative, although maybe the Farmerleaf and Chawang Shop examples work better as the second than the first.

Another popular Western vendor, Bitterleaf, who I've never tried teas from, with sheng offerings shown (arranged by order added to their catalog, so recent).  

Earlier content correction:  with many of these 200 grams cakes and some tongs (cake sets) it's not clear from this form of listing what the tea actually costs.  From a post comment here (a bit atypical) that is clarified:

The highest sticker price on the page ($445) is for a 5 cakes of our most expensive sheng ($0.95/gram when purchasing a cake). The most affordable 200g cake (from 2021) would be $25 ($0.125/gram), with our sole 357g cake being $38 ($0.105/gram), or ~$21 if converted to a 200g cake. Overall the average $/gram is ~$0.35/gram.

That average is $100+ per standard 357 gram cake, they just sell more small versions right now, it seems.  10 to 12 cents per gram is atypical on the low side, so they are already addressing this concern and divide.

I've tried a good bit of tea selling for $1 / gram, so its not as if that range is completely unfamiliar, but still I tended to notice what others might be seeing in it more than appreciating it myself, in comparison to teas presented as good but not that high in demand.  If it's largely aging potential, one possibility that gets discussed, that I couldn't necessarily experience that directly, without a 15 year wait.  In aged samples maybe, but these are relatively new teas.

It helps to place this in perspective in relation to wine.  People are buying $200 new cakes of sheng now, or 3-400, but that relates to about 50 7-gram sessions, while it's not unusual for people to buy $100 bottles of wine to drink 4 glasses in one sitting.  Once related awareness and demand broadens there's no reason why that price range couldn't shift a lot higher.  More and more people actually buying $200-400 cakes drives that shift, demand leading to supply, and then scarcity of the supply.

As with wine interest tea drinkers without over $1000 per year to spend on their sheng habit will eventually be priced out of the above average range of products.  That already happened, related to this more expensive offerings, but if it keeps shifting it could slide more towards the most expensive third, or half.

On a personal level I'm not concerned about it.  I can drink what others see as moderate quality, less appealing, low status level teas.  Nothing in experiencing teas presented as better and more costly, which I've only been able to experience in relation to samples, most passed on by vendors for review, led me to see that as a particularly problematic outcome.  I can see why a range of types is regarded as better, and in general I agree there is real justification for those quality assessments, but I just don't need to experience that minor character difference.  To me different is interesting, and it also works well to shift to broader experience, not towards accepted and established "higher quality" range.

Let's make that clearer:  am I rejecting the importance of aspects Peter described as desirable, here:  Young sheng can teach us many things that go beyond simply "flavor?" Not exactly.  As I take it he is referring to moving past interesting flavor and a lack of flaws as identifying better tea, on to the well-known ranges of mouth-feel, aftertaste experience, and "cha qi," body feel.  Emergent properties like balance, refinement, intensity, and complexity relate to how individual aspects (eg. certain flavors) are perceived as a set of interrelated individual aspects; he probably means that as well.  Aging potential is something else, another broad and complex subject, which he also indirectly touched on.

Am I saying that people could just as easily make their peace with accepting a reduced set of these identified aspect-range goals, or selling points, to reject pushing on to experience the highest possible quality level in teas, or at least to not blindly demand what others also demand most, like rare and in-demand experiences tied to origin areas?  More so that.  Or at least it could work to explore and appreciate some of what others tend to appreciate most, and keep some $200 cakes around, but then also lean into other range, and see what else is out there, with emphasis on trying more types that involve moderate spending.  

It gets trickier to highlight how that might work with links and screenshots as examples.  That Trident tea probably worked as that, although to be clear that was probably a case of direct purchasing leading to lower markup, not an off-demand type costing less.  I've long since claimed that I've appreciated value and character in Tea Mania teas, a Swiss vendor, but it's a stretch to say that they represent an alternative that is completely different than all of these other vendors.  I think it works to say that staying in touch with "modest quality" range like Xiaguan or Dayi Jia Ji tuocha teas, or anything from Taetea that's not 7542, is also what I mean, just not "growing out of" that preference range through an exploration process, retaining it as one of many things you appreciate.

I'll keep saying more about South East Asian sheng, a topic that already made it into this post in relation to one CS example being from Laos.  It seems as well to stop short of claiming that other country origin versions are going to help partly resolve escalating sheng pu'er costs, but there is always that hope.  Let's take that one step further; there is one standard SE Asian tea outlet I mention more often than the rest, in relation to selling good teas at good value, Hatvala from Vietnam:

The second price listed is for a 100 gram quantity (it is sheng; calling it "dark tea" or hei cha is one possible work-around for avoiding the area-restricted term "pu'er"), making it easy to identify per-gram cost, at 33 cents, 28.5, and 18.5.  That would relate to 357 gram tea cakes costing over $100, or around $70 at the lower end, for the other example.  Is that a good value?  I've tried versions of those teas a few years ago, and in my judgement sure, it's fine.  Of course that's not an objective assessment; it's a statement about personal preference.  

Was I really basing a value judgment in the past on a lower priced rate?  This is a real possibility.  Let's check that with the Internet Archive, from the earliest backup page there from Oct. of 2019:

It's interesting looking back to realize I last reviewed a Hatvala sheng (dark tea) in 2019 as well, this one.  Those 2022 prices increased 40-some percent in less than 3 years, in relation to that 2019 page, well over 10% per year, not far off that doubling of general sheng pricing in 5 or 6 years that I've been describing.  My friend Huyen has said that Vietnamese sheng pricing has been increasing a lot at the producer / wholesale level over the past couple of years, so that's probably a main cause, not just final consumer sales pricing shifting.  If vendors and bloggers keep talking about SE Asian sheng demand will keep increasing, and pricing.  

It's another long story but I think there is room for greatly expanded production of higher quality sheng from Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar, so that could lead to a correction on the supply side.  Per my understanding Chinese purchasing is already restricting what does or could possibly make it to the Western market, with some of that tea now being sold as Yunnan sheng, probably often after being mixed with Chinese material.

Now I'm just heading off on tangents.  To me it all connects; demand shift, style changes, quality level, potential new area sources and types, and pricing changes all link together.  A well-informed tea consumer can maximize their experience at whatever budget is available to them to do so, by considering and factoring in these inputs.  Following the latest, hottest trends is probably bad strategy related to that, going mostly by whatever draws out the most buzz on social media, or using catchy vendor marketing content as a primary information source.  It's too much work to read long text blog posts, for sure, but bearing this described context in mind could help with sorting out ideas from lots of other sources.