2022 Tea China 7542 compared with a 2014 7542

 

Tea China version right, in all photos

A new vendor--new to me--sent some tea for review recently; many thanks for that!  It's always nice checking in with basics, and a 7542 sheng pu'er was included.  I didn't check the year yet; it's interesting doing these reviews as blind as possible, then going back and seeing if what I experienced and described made sense based on the actual product details.  Later edit:  2022!

Of course all 7542 isn't the same.  They create and sell that in batches, and I don't know the batch number for the 2014 version I'm using for comparison (that I happened to have around).  Now that I think of it I've got a "younger" loose version I could've used; maybe that would have made more sense.  If the two are at vastly different ages that will still be fine; I can use it to compare aging patterns.

Then storage also changes things.  The tea I have has spent lots of time in Bangkok, which is hot and humid, which will speed up storage transition speed (fermentation, the growth of bacteria and fungus).  If this other version is a comparable age but stored in a cooler and dryer area, like Kunming, it would have fermented less.  It's hard to imagine that it might be "not as good" related to that batch issue, but I guess that's possible.  Newer Spring tea versions of lots of teas are more prized, so that batch #1 sells for more (of 7542, and other recipe types sold as a series like that).

There's not so much more to add.  7542 is familiar; it usually works better as an aged tea, and 11 years old really isn't quite enough.  At least these interim tasting checks are getting closer to the right time, just as that cake has been chiseled down a good bit, but probably still years away from being fully aged.  It helps to buy one cake to try and another to just age if you are actually going to try one once in awhile.

Yunnan DaYi Pu’er Tea 7542 Classic Raw Pu’er Tea  $16.43 (2022 version, for a 150 gram small cake)

The listing includes a reference to it being 250 grams in one place, but that small cake version of 7542 is usually 150, and it says that in the label image reference.

The listing is just general background information:

Pu’Er ripe tea from the famous Yunnan Menghai Pu’Er Tea Factory (Dayi). 7542 is a classic formula for Pu’Er tea and a benchmark for Pu’Er Raw tea.

We purchased these Pu’Er teas in 2022.

In the new tea stage: The aroma is rich, featuring intense, long-lasting floral and fruity notes, as well as elegant and light honey-sweet fragrance. The lingering aroma at the bottom of the cup persists for a long time. Additionally, new tea may have a fresh clean scent or downy hair aroma, with an overall fresh and uplifting fragrance.

After aging: As storage time increases, the aroma gradually changes. It transitions from fresh floral notes to aged aroma, camphor-like scent, medicinal fragrance, woody aroma, etc., becoming increasingly mellow and profound.

I was going to return to that "benchmark" idea in the conclusions, so I might as well expand on it here.  For whatever reason it has evolved that this one tea version represents all factory tea range, not necessarily as the best possible example, but as the singular version cited as type-typical.  That's fine; it's a pretty good example of the range.  It makes it especially attractive for trying out the general type range.

Another point I wanted to mention related to cost.  This costs 11 cents a gram.  That seems kind of low, but I don't really follow market rate pricing.  It doesn't necessarily raise a red flag for me that it might be fake, but that's not an unheard of range of concern.  Searching for something else an EBay listing was at about the same pricing, and King Tea Mall sells it for $14, not so different.

One might wonder why the pricing for these is so moderate; two of them would relate to a cost of around $30, from all of these sources, for just under a standard 357 gram amount (300 grams instead).  The price of sheng has dropped a good bit, but it was my understanding that this was a relatively recent trend, that over the past year a dip in demand and market positioning occurred.  These are from 3 years ago; I would've expected it to sell for a little more.  

One of the causes for a relative "crash" in pu'er pricing was that many sources were making too much of it, to support speculative buying, and also ordinary demand, people drinking it.  It's not counter-intuitive that expanded production would relate to very well known versions being inexpensive even  prior to this final outcome, the more significant and broad price drop over the past year, or slightly longer.

How would I know if this was "real?"  I wouldn't.  It including a smoky note is hard to place, something I discuss in this review.  Quality level, style, and appearance seems right for this tea version.  Probably it just picked up some external smoke contact along the way, and that's not any sort of unusual clue.

color difference comes out more in wet leaf

Review:

older comparison version, left, brews darker

2014 comparison version:  color is darker in this version; it should be older.  Flavor is a little subdued this round; it's still opening up.  Tones are warm.  It has fermented to a more agreeable range, per my preference.  There's a different sort of barnyard flavor present, compared to the edgier, more exotic aged Xiaguan range.  This includes aged barn wood, and a touch of leather, but not the funkier saddle leather scent. 

Tea China 7542:  this includes a touch of smoke; I'm not sure what to make of that.  I don't remember noticing smoke in a 7542 version before.  It will probably mostly settle out within about two infusions anyway, given how light it is.  Smoke can come from a naturally occurring flavor, from contact with smoke during the wok pan-frying kill-green step, or from a storage input, from it being stored where smoke is also present.  I don't know what this is from.  Smoke as a natural flavor tends to be slightly different, but I'm not going to claim I could spot that difference now.  It just doesn't come up as often as it had before; a decade back it had seemed that contact with smoke during processing was more normal.

Flavors seem clean and pleasant beyond that.  Mineral is pronounced, and some limited vegetal range flavor remains, which has transitioned to warmer tones in the other, over time.  This still balances well enough.  It should be pleasant to drink.  For people who think young sheng tastes like kerosene, or whatever else, they might still hate these.  Neither is fully age transitioned.

2014 #2:  brewed liquid color is all the more evident; this is darker and redder.  Flavor is a little rough; this needs however many more years to really get there.  I do drink partly aged sheng from time to time to experience that intensity and punch, but it can seem a little harsh.  

Warm tones are emerging, towards dried fruit, well within a good bit of medicinal herb range now.  It just settles more on aged wood with a touch of leather.  I suppose that astringency and towards-vegetal range is like cured wood, at this point.  It doesn't taste completely woody, as cheap sheng can, like plywood smells, but it's not so far off it either.

Tea China version:  smoke is pretty intense this round, even stronger.  And lots of other complexity joins in beyond that.  It's also on the challenging side, very astringent, with some bitterness (lots, to anyone who hasn't been drinking young sheng for awhile).  I'll need to eat something between rounds to clear part of the accumulated experience of bitterness, vegetal range, and astringency.

Is it pleasant though?  I don't know.  I like varying sheng experiences, and this is one of them, but it's also kind of challenging.  I'm not sure it makes sense to me to buy a tea like this to drink at this stage, fermented (age transitioned) to this degree.  Other people do though.  I do drink kind of challenging partly-aged sheng sometimes, just not often.

2014 #3:  brewed a little lighter this kind of makes sense, with early rough edges transitioning away.  The same range of flavors stands out, but it all balances better.  Warm mineral tone plays a larger role.  Even sweetness, it seems.  It's hinting towards dried fruit range to come, but it will need more transition for that to become clearer.  

At least it's nice and clean, not musty.  And it has been stored in the wettest and hottest conditions imaginable, right at the limit of what tea could experience without molding, with the heat enabling it to change in a different way, and probably somehow suppressing mold development.  Mind you if we put bread out on the table (sealed in a bag) it will mold really fast; fungus can thrive at 30+ C, in the upper 80s and low 90s F.

Tea China version:  smoke does start to ease up, but it's only balancing the rest better.  That's still centered on a partly cured wood tone at this point, of course with some mineral and bitterness.  It has a limestone sort of lighter mineral tone.  It's not unpleasant, but it's not necessarily "approachable" either.  Then again the other version isn't that much easier to appreciate, even with some warmer tones included.

I haven't been mentioning that intensity is good.  It's really a bit much.  But in a sense I like that about sheng, and pushed to a far limit it's interesting to experience.  All of this sounds more negative than I intend it.  7542 is a pretty good version of factory tea, and these two examples are fine.

2014 #4:  the best this has been.  Some root spice seems to emerge, or maybe it's that combined with bark spice.  This version really is getting there.  But it would be better not to drink it at all for 3 or 4 more years to let it keep changing though, then after 3 or 4 more it would probably be better yet.

Tea China:  smoke has dropped to an even level input with the rest.  I might've seemed to imply that smoke is a flaw, that people should dislike it.  In the right other flavor context it can be very pleasant, and it works in this.  The somewhat challenging astringency and vegetal range is a bit much, and warm toned smoke helps balance it.  Without that smoke I don't think that this would be as good, at this fermentation transition level or stage.

It's fairly clean in overall effect, just with rough edges.  Intensity is great, and the mineral range is generally positive.  Sure, it can seem a little harsh, so a take on it depends on appreciating that or else hating it.  I lean towards liking it.  But then my overall favorite range of sheng is something else entirely, the fruity, warmer toned, bright character (kind of contrast with the last aspect, but it makes sense to me), good intensity younger versions, commonly produced in "other" South East Asian countries, in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and wherever else.  I guess that Myanmar is the other "wherever else," but the style is more common in those other three countries, based on what I've tried, with some Myanmar range seeming closer to some Yunnan styles.

I'll try another round and let this go.  It's too much tea to power through quickly, and it's too intense.  The effect is also strong, along with the flavor being intense.  I'll chalk that up to another positive, but if I were to drink a half dozen rounds, 12 cups, it wouldn't be positive.  10 is pushing it.  I've thrown out about a fourth of this tea just to make it this far.  It's disrespectful to the tea, as I see it, but it was a necessary input to getting further through rounds to try these more completely.  I could come back later and try more, but I prefer to write the notes in one go, then edit when I get to it.

2014 #5:  more of the same, not transitioning so much.  I can appreciate this.  I wouldn't want to have this experience too often, but once in awhile it's nice.  

Tea China:  the same applies to this; it's fine to drink this as it is just now.  Not my main preference, but then lots of tea experiences are like that.  It would probably be better in another dozen years, but for many that kind of delay would seem problematic.

Conclusions: 

One might wonder if I can judge a difference between the two, adjusting for the age difference.  Not really; they're too far apart in age and character.  They seem similar, beyond that, but that's a stretch as a conclusion about authenticity or quality or whatever.  

The smoke is the main difference, and that was probably added in later on, through some sort of storage contact.  People using actual wood fire for heating isn't necessarily as odd as some people might see it as; I'm from Pennsylvania, and I grew up using a woodburning stove as an alternative heating system.  Not a fireplace, although we had that too, I mean a stove in the basement that heated water that circulated in a baseboard system.  We used a heat pump for a long time, pulling heat from a cold spring water source, then later my parents switched to using fuel oil, when that system needed to be replaced.

These might have been similar related to starting points.  Both are pretty clean, heavy on mineral, expressing some wood tones, just in different ranges, related to aging (I think).  Intensity is good for both.  They balance ok.  There are lots of flaws that I might have mentioned that aren't included, lack of intensity, a different range of wood flavor, mustiness, lack of balance, limited sweetness (which doesn't come across well with the other range present), or not including the right range of astringency and bitterness.  They're both fine.  

I really like the unblended, distinctive narrow input material type effect better, something lots of sheng drinkers have been conditioned to prefer over the last decade.  With that more gaps show up, and distinct strengths, limited range flavor inclusions.  They've blended a lot of that out in these.  They're using some relatively intense material in them, but that's a part of it.  And they're a little harsh; also a normal inclusion.  

I like the way the first is moving towards spice, maybe a little towards incense spice, in the round after the notes leave off.  To me that's what 7542 is really about, experiencing it as a 20 year old tea, or 25 years old.  20 is fine for Bangkok storage; time passes differently here.  I'm holding up well, but teas change faster here.

To me 7542 is particularly interesting because it serves as the normal standard for factory teas, a benchmark version.  Experiencing it helps someone not only learn that category better, but also lets you discuss that particular experience with others, as a shared main reference.  Buying a version that's 3 or 4 years old and drinking straight through it might not be entirely positive, but even for that it's not awful.  It's not at all ideal, compared to more approachable sheng, but for people new to exploration it wouldn't be so bad to work through some exposure.  You get accustomed to brewing approach that way, and become more familiar with the general style.  

Related to buying from a relatively unknown, small vendor versus a known marketplace vendor I like the idea of supporting smaller businesses, I just don't end up buying much from this kind of source.  Or from any sources, this year, and in the past more from only a few favorites.  It will be interesting trying other teas from them, to see what the rest is like, which may make them a more attractive source.

Trying two low cost sheng bought in Shenzhen

where we bought one tea, a wholesale market in Shenzhen

that vendor had a range of different teas on hand

I wrote about buying a few moderate cost sheng versions on a trip to Shenzhen, China recently (in this trip summary post), and this is a first review of those.  One is from a wholesale tea market we visited (described a little in this Wikitravel entry), the first tea we bought in that place.  The second is a grocery store purchased version of sheng pu'er.


In part buying that second tea related to seeing what it was like as much as to having positive expectations.  There had been discussions of people buying cheap cakes in Chinese grocery stores in a Facebook group and I could relate to people gambling on tea they didn't expect to be very good.  It matched those circumstance so closely that it made me want to try it all the more.  Those people were talking about spending $20 on a cheap cake and this one cost around $10, this time in a Chinese grocery store in a different sense, in a normal version of such a shopping outlet that happened to be in China.

The other tea cost even less, if I'm remembering right, so my expectations weren't that high for both.  I've tried both, on that trip, so this isn't exactly a blind tasting, but it's easier to get a fuller impression in a familiar setting, in a quiet environment with a lot of time to focus.  I'm trying these at noon on one of the hottest days of the year in Bangkok, surely around 35 C / 95 F right now, so not necessarily under ideal circumstances.


The tea from the market, labeled as "300" plus some characters, was presented as a Bulang origin version, if I picked out the right term from the middle of some other things the vendor said in Chinese.  The other tea I didn't know, but there is a review section here with more of a guess.  The wholesale market tea is 2015 and grocery store version 2018 so it's not an ideal comparison in that regard; they'll differ from that one factor alone.

the tea label from the shop in Shenzhen

I'd really planned to skip going through the labels more closely for search terms (producer names), and to use reverse-image lookup approach and the rest, or draw on help from Chinese language speakers to sort out producer names, but I just did it.  Maybe the pine aspect I'm experiencing in one is type-typical for a narrow growing region, and I wouldn't know that for not looking into it. 


Of course most likely the best I could do is turn up Chinese versions of Amazon and Ebay shops selling the same teas (not necessarily knock-offs, since these are inexpensive teas to begin with, unless the one is a knock-off, which could be the case).  Almost every time someone posts a picture of some random low-cost sheng or shu label in a tea group one of two answers comes up:  either the label is completely non-specific or it's some general, low-cost tea manufacturer cited, without clearly identifiable product specifics, which is where this led.

Online search based on labels

I had written in an earlier review draft I wasn't going to try to research these teas, but instead I did just try to look up this tea version (the Shenzhen shop version with a "300" in it), using a reverse image search.  This Alibaba vendor / shop page lists something from the same producer as a National Tea Factory sheng product selling for 28 yuan / RMB, or US $4.20.  I think I paid more like 40 or 50, or approaching $8; maybe I overpaid.  Anyway, that product is listed as shu and the tea I've got is sheng (I'm pretty sure I can tell the difference), and the label seems to say it's by the same maker but the product name is different.  Description there is limited, and it looks like a random cut-and-paste of whatever sheng content they had around.  In one place it cites the Banzhang village, and also the product name "Bohai Qizi cake old class Zhang Pu'er tea."  I could swear that vendor said it was from Bulang.

Messing around with this for a half hour I also used a Chinese text image recognition and translator site (imagetranslate.com) to figure out that 布朗 山 translates as "brown mountain."  Maybe transliterating would've been more informative?  Passing that back through Google translate did render it as "Bulang shan," nice!  It's still just Bulang sheng, what it started out as, and probably a generic version of it.  Another shu version labeled similarly on Taobao lists for 97 yuan / RMB, for what that's worth.

勐海 古 味  kicks out as the read text (looks right to me), which isn't being translated for whatever reason, but Google Translate suggests it means "Měng hǎi gǔwèi."  That first part sounds familiar.  An alternate strategy is to read the rest of the label and see if a manufacturer name turns up, or anything else.

That sort of worked and sort of didn't.  There is a lot of information on the rear label but it's almost all in Chinese.  It's a 2018 tea version; there is that.  On a paper insert a longer name is cited, Meng Hai Lang He Cha Ye Youxian Gongsi.  That could potentially relate to a producer factory name, as cited from a Yunnan Sourcing reference:

Langhe 郎河 : Langhe is a factory of Menghai 勐海 that was founded in 1995. Since then it has built a strong reputation, won awards, and has become one of Yunnan's most renowned brands. Langhe ripe teas are the most sought after from this tea factory. Classic Langhe recipes include 9599, 9579, 9559, High Mountain Ripe, and Gong Ting Ripe. Langhe ripe teas are excellent for long-term aging because they employ traditional light fermentation "wo dui" technique. This light fermentation allows for gradual aging of the ripe teas and retain much of the character of a raw pu-erh tea.

So maybe it's that, but a sheng version.  It was sitting right next to a shu version labeled almost identically too, and I only picked up the sheng.  Dang! 

Further online search doesn't turn up much but this product comes up related to searching that labeled name I mentioned, a $21 250 gram brick of 2015 sheng, also identified as from the Langhe factory.  Who knows if it's even vaguely related.

It's not a given that I've cracked this case anyway.  That 65.5 yuan value converts to $9.77 right now, to be more precise.  A decent $10 shu cake is probably worth checking out, but at the same time I feel like shu tastes more the same across the entire range, where sheng varies more, so it was still a justified call.  It's just that if it turns out this was from a factory known for shu instead I'd have bought that too, and put up with that extra bit of static from my wife about going over 2 kilograms for tea buys. 

Who knows about the generic Tie Guan Yin; it was sitting right beside it, and I bought two packs of that too.

Review

Shenzhen wholesale market "300" Bulang 2015 sheng

Shenzhen grocery store Langhe factory 2018 sheng

"300" 2015 Bulang version left, Langhe 2018 version right

300, 2015 sheng (these will go by nicknames; I'll stick with the initial notes versions):  it's not bad, just a bit light in flavor and overall effect during the first infusion.  Some of that I think is due to not fully infusing yet, so it's probably as well to hold off a round in detailed description.  Bitterness is moderate and tone is warm, not off in any way, just a bit vegetal, towards a warm version of wood.  So far so good but developing along exactly the same line wouldn't be great results, it would just be decent tea.


grocery store tea, 2018 sheng (this may be a Langhe factory tea):  as in tasting this at the hotel while there in Shenzhen the pine flavor aspect stands out a lot.  I guess that's a good thing.  Pine comes up as a flavor aspect in teas, just not usually this pronounced.  It's softer than it might be for a year old inexpensive sheng; it's a bit bitter but not overly so, and not really rough in astringency or other character.

Second infusion

Bulang left, Langhe factory right, a good bit of aging leaf color difference

I gave these around a 10 second infusion time to move through the beginning of the infusion cycle faster, but the next round brewed a bit faster will probably describe how I'd prefer to drink them better.


300, 2015 Bulang sheng:  this is still woody but there's a decent spice aspect coming in, a bit towards root beer (or sassafras).  For tea that cost under $10 a cake this is exceptional; for tea aside from cost considerations it's still ok, just not exactly above average when you fold in better versions. 

If that spice aspect draws out further as this ages a bit more it really could be quite pleasant tea.  The character is unified and distinctive enough that I'm not sure they obtained this result by blending a lot of types of tea inputs together (one main way that producers create decently balanced versions from inexpensive sources); it might just be how a more narrow source happened to be.  It would've been interesting to try it young and see how it got to where it is now, to see what rounded off or transitioned over nearly 4 years of aging, but of course that's not possible.


grocery store Langhe 2015 version (probably):  straight pine, even pinier brewed a little stronger.  Since it's not challenging across any aspect range it worked well that way, but would be optimum brewed slightly lighter.  Mouth feel is slightly dry in this, not exactly ideal, but then I did just brew a young sheng for twice as long as I thought would work for a more ideal infusion strength. 

Given all the vendor buzz about how if you don't buy their forest-source, arbor-grown, or organic-production versions you'll drink lots of pesticides I'm considering that as a possibility too.  I just can't place if it makes any sense that I'd taste pesticides, never mind guess at the flavor or feel that would relate (typically; of course there would be a range of contaminants).  Someone commented on a discussion thread not so long ago that a carrier for some materials would taste like petrochemical (so diesel or gasoline?), but that's just more random hearsay.  All that aside this tea would best be judged at a lighter infusion strength so I'll say more next round.

Third infusion

300:  this version is improving; that root-spice trace is catchy.  Beyond that a warm version of mineral gives it depth, a bit like the smell of a creek bed.  For urban dwellers who that means nothing to rocks have smell, but that varies a lot by rock type and individual setting.  In Pennsylvania (where I'm from) there is a specific smell to a very small flowing water feature, maybe more commonly called a stream.  The smell probably relates more to the local flora and micro-fauna than actual rocks, but at any rate this tastes like those smell.  It probably contains a hint of pine too, or it could just be that I'm "looking for" that aspect due to it being so pronounced in the other tea.


grocery store version:  different pine now, I guess, a bit warmer.  To add description this has moved from tasting a lot like pine needles (maybe spruce?) into picking up more of the resinous tree-sap flavor.  The other tea was soft with a bit of fullness (which I really might have mentioned in that part), but this has more of a resinous feel to it too.  It's not astringency in a typical presentation but it is a version of it.  It works much better brewed light; it's actually pleasant.  It doesn't seem off in any way, as if some of the aspects are negative, but it's unconventional enough that someone's take on how good it is would relate to a match to particular preference.

This reminds me of tasting a Yunnan Sourcing sheng version yesterday that I liked but didn't necessarily love (Yunnan Sourcing  "He Bian Zhai" Wild Arbor Cake), a tea that seemed generally positive but that was unusual enough in character that it would seem reasonable for someone to like or dislike it.  I think in that case some of the positive expectation would be built into the description prior to trying it (presentation as an "old arbor" tea).  If people tasted these three teas side by side they might just split on which they liked better, but knowing one cost a lot more and came with a better back-story would surely factor into that balance.

Fourth infusion

cutting infusion time back might've worked better; the rounds varied

I have things to do (water a lot of plants, mostly; my mother-in-law is out of town, so that's on me) so I'll probably cut this off after this round and drink a few more later, without making notes on those.  Funny, I was running late to getting to that in making initial notes and now I'm about two hours later in editing these same notes almost a week later.  It's 37 C out, a temperature I should be able to convert automatically since that translates to 98.6 F, body temperature.  It felt a lot hotter six days ago just because I wasn't used to it, just getting back from China.  Hong Kong was nice and cool, in the lower 20s (around 70 F).


300:  with a better back-story I'd probably really like this tea.  The feel is moderate in intensity but it works; it's not thin at all, not challenging, but it has some fullness to it.  Aftertaste is limited but it doesn't vanish when it leaves your mouth, it's just not extended or intense.  The flavor is nice, that warmth and root-spice aspect, supported by warm mineral with unusual range.  The woodiness extending into a trace of pine works.  As a main aspect, similar to the other, it would be more of a judgment call if that's positive or not but as a supporting element it's pleasant.  As for alternative reads (takes) on this tea it would be natural to emphasize woodiness more, to go on about tree bark and forest floor as I often enough do.  The sweetness and overall balance make it work, more so than any one or limited set of aspects working well.  A well above average quality level doesn't stand out, related to markers, intensity, or general character, but it still works.


grocery:  brewed lighter and transitioning a little this is better than it has been.  The pine is toning down, turning into more of a warm spice range aspect, trailing from resin over into a more complex range.  It's a bit like the scent of a pile of wood from an old lumbermill, the way that those fine particles of wood ferment and soften into a warmer, sweeter range over time. 

Again I'm guessing that I'm losing readers here.  As a child there was an old lumbermill site on our property, and we would go an play on an enormous pile of very old ground wood particles, which the forest was slow to reclaim.  The scent wasn't necessarily positive or negative to me back then, just normal, typical background.  Of course nostalgia paints it as positive now.  Back to this tea, the sweetness makes it work, it seems, tying together a complex but mostly wood-tone range.  I bet it would be better in another year once the youthful intensity tapers a little and warm tones pick up further, but we'll see.

Conclusions, speculation

I never did really factor in how one tea being nearly 4 years old and the other 1 played into this tasting.  To people brand new to sheng that would mean that the first should have improved to be much better than it originally was, and better than the younger version, and that unless it was quite inferior to begin with it should be better.  Really it's not that simple.  Sheng changes depending on starting point, and some versions are really nice a year or two in, or nearly brand new, and don't improve at all from there, they just change in character.  It can relate to more what someone likes than how objectively positive the transition is.  It's too much to get into all that here, and I couldn't do a mapping of characters to aging transitions summary justice anyway.

Both teas were ok.  I liked the "300" or 4 year old version better, at this stage, but maybe it'll just flatten from here, fade instead of transition in a positive way, and the other will improve.  I bought these inexpensive teas to see how different aging transitions play out, and of course also to try different teas, and to have them to drink, and I'm surprised they are as good as they turned out to be. 

Buying tea online is more completely random than the approach I used seemed to be.  The wholesale market shop owner was of course just trying to make a sale but he probably picked what he thought I'd like, what represented a good value.  The grocery store probably tried to carry a decent tea version, versus an Aliexpress or Taobao vendor maybe instead passing on whatever they could buy for the least.  Tourist-oriented shops are hit and miss; it just depends on the vendor focus and theme.  We didn't see a lot of that there, to be honest, hardly any tea shops scattered around, and less of it than you'd expect in Hong Kong.

Not spending much related more to my wife being with me than that playing any sort of direct role.  I made it out of China with around 2 kg of tea (although 800 grams or so of oolong was more for gifts; that doesn't count), and if I'd been buying more moderately priced versions she would've objected sooner.  As it was when we passed through Hong Kong on the way out her patience for picking up more had already been exhausted, which was unfortunate related to walking by a really promising looking shop in an older commercial area there.

just one more tuocha at least; that's how they get you