The difference between blogging in support of tea vendors and shilling

 

This subject just came up, related to an odd pretense, just recommending a vendor.  It was on Reddit, where someone took offense that I had kept recommending Tea Mania, a Swiss vendor who sells pu'er, Wuyi Yancha, Taiwanese oolong, and Japanese teas.  The problem?  It seemed biased, to them.

Never mind that case, the complaint; there was nothing to that.  But it's an interesting sub-theme, how a blogger, who aims to be objective, deals with having favorite vendor sources.  I can unpack that quite a bit.  

It seems best to do so in discussion of my favorite vendors, explaining what my bias is, and why I see myself as still objectively "reporting" tea impressions in their cases.  Maybe not all of that works; it's up to a reader to decide for themselves.  I'll cover the different related factors along with that form, vendor by vendor, starting with a few favorites.

Jip Eu tea shop in Bangkok:  the owners are like an extra uncle and aunt to me.  Of course I would try to help them, even if my experiences there hadn't been as positive, related to their teas, and the value they're sold at.  But the broad range of interesting versions and great values are the main point.  It's why I settled into visiting them more than everywhere else in Bangkok combined, related to buying tea.  I have mentioned other places, summarized here, I just don't go to many very often.

first meeting Huyen!  8 years ago.  she would be my favorite vendor, if she sold tea.

I've already covered the bias, that I like visiting with them.  Related to product diversity I've tried different teas almost every time I've visited them, a count that is in the dozens now.  Who knows how much I've not identified that is available there.  I found brand new--to me--aged sheng versions there in the last two years, that had long since been there, and I've been buying similar aged sheng from them for nearly a decade.  

They specialize in Wuyi Yancha, both good versions and very inexpensive blends, that typical better-than-it-should-be dirt cheap Shui Xian (which would be called Da Hong Pao in some places, but they just go with what it actually is).  Their tins of medium grade Dan Cong are good, and it's a great place to buy either good jasmine pearls (white tea) or inexpensive jasmine green tea.  There are gaps; black teas aren't well represented, and oddly they don't sell almost anything from Thailand.  And it's hard to shop there, harder for others than for me, since they won't just sit and try everything in the shop with you (with friends, sure, but it's not like that for walk-ins).  There is no product list.

I know what these teas are, and what the market values are, and they're all pretty good, related to quality and value issues.  Maybe value and quality are hit and miss, which gets back to the "hard to shop" theme.  I am usually describing the positive side, but I've expressed that it's hard to shop there many times in this blog.  They just ask what people want, instead of talking through the options.  I suppose that's fair, since it would be a long talk covering it all.

Wuyi Origin:  this is a very well-respected producer and direct online sales vendor of Wuyi Yancha, based in Wuyishan, China.  I've never met Cindy, one owner, but I consider her a friend.  That almost covers it; there's no need to justify how good their teas are, or where value stands with them, because searching Wuyi Origin in any online tea group would turn up a list of endorsements.  Their teas are pretty far up the scale, and lots of people are familiar with that.  

I suppose there would always be something slightly better, or a style that's a better match to some preferences, but I sometimes recommend against people starting with their teas because they're too good.  You could never go back and appreciate that Chinatown shop Shui Xian if you explored their teas at first.  

In this case I don't feel it's necessary to say a lot about potential bias in online writing, and I've not been writing about their teas for years anyway.  I moved on to drinking sheng pu'er, and mostly order Thai, Laos, and Vietnamese teas, to maximize value.  Chinese teas can be slightly better, and value relates to quality related to cost, so that's one half of the equation, but for people on a tight budget the second part really matters as much or more.  

I mention them here because it's an example of a personal bias, and I did need to consider and try to address that in a lot of earlier reviews.

Tea Mania:  the source of the trigger for this writing.  I do know and like the owner, and he has contributed teas for review a number of times, but to me it's really about their teas.  Even when my tea budget was limited--it has been, for awhile--at one point this vendor was the source for my main annual order, stocking up every year.  I probably should get back to that, but I've been on a SE Asian tea tangent for who knows how many years, maybe about 5.  Really for 15, since I started on that, but I mean in relation to it being most of what I buy.

a 2016 cake reviewed in 2018 (my photography and sheng background were a little rough)

What's so great about their teas?  One Yiwu cake line represents some of the best value out there for pu'er (Lucky Bee).  And they sell more gushu / higher cost versions, that are significantly better.  Those other tea type ranges are really solid (Taiwanese oolong, Wuyishan teas, and Japanese teas).  So quality level is as high as "curator" vendors often offer, with pricing more in a conventional small vendor range.

Unless I'm judging all of that wrong there isn't more to explain or to justify.  They sell really good tea for below market rate costs.  Not far below standard pricing, but at a good value (except for that Yiwu; that level of value is atypical).  

One more caveat:  a number of vendors have contributed teas that are better than I typically buy for evaluation and review, so I'm not basing my own judgment on a broad range of routine purchases at a high cost level.  I don't buy 50 to 80 cent per gram pu'er; I can't afford it.  I've placed three small tea orders in the last two months, which my wife might already freak out about, which represents about as much tea as I've bought over the last year and a half (for myself; I do routinely buy tea for gifts, which is something else).  All of that tea was a bit below moderate in cost; it was cheap.

So how do I know that I can judge "gushu," dollar per gram range sheng fairly?  Reviewing is always about working with whatever impression you have, based on whatever background.  I've tried lots of different kinds of teas, from different sources; it would have to do.

Trident Bookseller and Cafe:  this isn't the same kind of theme.  I know the one owner of this business online, and like him, and he has sent tea to try once.  I recommend them as a good curator source; they seek out the best of the best kind of range, and sell that at way below a normal price, for what those teas are.

But it is odd, recommending people buy tea through an online outlet hosted by a cafe.  It makes sense, because of what I've described.  In trying those teas, only one set, I couldn't have been more convinced that every version was the best I'd tried of those standard types (Longjing and such).  

I don't think there is the body of endorsement comments out there in groups confirming this; people who know know, and most others don't, and people tend to "gatekeep" good sources.  They're not really trying to blow up as a main vendor source anyway.  They already sell books, and coffee, and tea on-site, so the online outlet is for profit but also for playing a broader role as a source.

I'm not overly sensitive about my image as possessing an ideally reliable opinion, in case that's how this is coming across.  People can think that I am biased, and "out of pocket," as my son says; it's all the same to me.  People who know know.  I expect that not everyone's subjective preferences and value judgment would match mine; that would be normal.  In the loosest possible sense I suppose that I am a tea expert, but that's not at all how I represent myself.  I'm a tea enthusiast who tries different things, and also likes to write.  Every experienced tea enthusiast realizes that there are a lot of thinner spots in what they've experienced; it's just how that works.

Viet Sun:  I wanted to keep this mostly to vendors that I'm buying tea from, since that makes the most sense (even though Trident was an exception to that).  I've bought more tea from Viet Sun over the past few years than anyone else.  It might seem that I've went quiet on that, since really tightening my budget last year involved skipping that order.  I bought a little in Chinatown, and from one "local" Thai source, and that was it.  I think I'll skip mentioning Aphiwat here; he's as much a favorite source as any, but you can search that in this blog to find a half dozen related posts, tied mostly to Thai sheng.

Steve and another friend covered Vietnamese tea market status here

Viet Sun is a unique vendor.  For a time Hatvala was the only Western-facing, good quality, great value Vietnamese source.  Or maybe only the Western facing part is enough; it was where you could get tea from Vietnam, and it just happened to be good tea that was moderate in cost.  Viet Sun expanded that and shifted range, to much better Vietnamese sheng and black tea.  

I did just order some tea from them, checking out this year's versions, so I'll write plenty of posts expanding on that over the next six weeks or so.  There's a pattern where unheard of new range is inexpensive at first, and slightly inconsistent, and then as consistency and demand ramp up so does cost.  The days of Vietnamese teas being an amazing value could be winding down; the original production level pricing also increases, as awareness and demand expands, which is fair.

On that quality side, maybe this level of Vietnamese sheng didn't even exist a decade ago.  I tried a pretty good version nearly that far back, from a Hanoi shop, so it probably did, but there wasn't much, and it was almost impossible to find.  Now it's not.  

If I'm wrong about all of that then I'm wrong.  But I've tried about as much South East Asian sheng as anyone alive, so that would have to relate to a bias working out much differently than I expect, or my overall judgment being wonky.

Could it be?  Sure, why not?  Once or twice a year someone will confirm that their preferences match mine, and I've been a huge help to them, but that's not much validation or feedback given my posts are viewed many thousands of time per year.  My judgment must also conflict with some others.  

Those views are mostly by bots, probably, but my guess is that around 10,000 views per month might be people, or at least 5,000, and then an order of magnitude more are AI bots, at this point, more than 10 times that many.

This is not an airtight case for me being completely objective, is it?  I don't think it works that way, that any one person can strip out their own judgment from their experience of tea.  I think that people can get better and better at placing their perspective within the landscape of others', but there would be limits to that.  I'm not claiming that I'm exceptional at it.  My guess is that I'm as successful as people tend to be on average, who put in moderate effort, but for sure others with different strengths and more deliberate or dedicated approaches can do better.

I get the sense that even from a source that means a lot to me personally I can still judge a tea fairly, in the same way I would if bought at random, or sent by a vendor source for review.  Or maybe that's not quite right.  We tend to like what we expect to like; it just works out like that.  We can zoom in on positive aspects or flaws and limitations in experiences, without noticing doing so.  It's probably impossible to accurately score yourself in relation to this factor.

I'm going to mention one more factor related to my "policy" of reviewing teas, to help place my approach.  I review what I like, not what I dislike.  You would have to go back pretty far here to find a tea that I describe as unpleasant.  

I'll cite an example, where I would do that:  I reviewed tea fossils and resin, two forms of instant tea, awhile back, and I don't really like either.  That was here, in 2024.  Looking back one was from a friend, and one from Tea Mania, a sample contributed for review, and I pretty much said that I didn't care for it.  

Here's an excerpt from that review, starting with the Tea Mania cha gao (tea resin):

[about the cha gao]:  I can't say that I like it.  There are redeeming characteristics, but it's rough, harsh.  Of course very heavy mineral dominates it; one might expect that.  It tastes like drinking rainwater condensed down to a brown liquid after sitting out in a plant pot, reducing there.  A pine note isn't bad though, and it lacks a lot of the disagreeable character of cheap shou.  It's not a lot like peat, it doesn't include off earthy flavors, or fishiness, and so on.

I diluted it again, and it's slightly better, but it's still going to taste like that, so heavy on mineral tones.  It's not so close to the flavor range of shou pu'er, but of course it is closest to that.  I overbrewed some Fu brick tea recently and this also reminds me of that.

tea fossils:  it's better, but only in comparison with the other tea.  I wouldn't drink this.  I will drink these cups; I tend to not waste tea, but I mean there's no way I would purchase this, or repeat this trial to check if other versions are better.  Related to the experience being novel it is quite interesting though...

So that's it; I will only review a tea I don't like if the flaws are interesting enough to warrant it, if there is a story.  If a pu'er just misses for you, or a black tea is missing a dimension or two, then there's no story.  It's bad tea, per your subjective tastes.

On the other theme I pass on as objective an opinion as I happen to have in reviews.  I've always wondered how that's affected by expectations, but we don't really get to know that, about ourselves.  To a limited extent we can work around that using blind tasting, which I've mentioned recently, but that's kind of a different subject.