Asking The Expert: Choosing Pu’er Tea (Michelin guide)

 

Someone commented this on a Quora post I added about a Vietnamese tea shop, some writing I did for Tea Journey magazine a year ago.  It's what the title says, a Michelin guide to pu'er from a pu'er expert.  

I'd expect some inconsistency and error in such a guide, even if written by a relative expert, and I wasn't disappointed.  Most of it was fine, but the exceptions stood out.  And what they didn't say also seemed odd; they referenced shou / shu / ripe pu'er processing, but never called it any of those names.

Since a lot of the content is good background information, and since selection of what to include or not include is a bit arbitrary, I don't want to be too negative about this source.  By highlighting what doesn't work I'll be implying that it's full of errors, and low in quality or accuracy, but it's really not.  It's just not 100% correct.  Since it also lacks clear framing, what range the ideas fall within relative to the rest of pu'er experience scope, to me it's a bit more deeply flawed, even though most of it is ok with that framing added back in.

Let's start with the intro to the author, which places it as likely to be completely reliable:

For newcomers to the tea-drinking culture, how should they select the right pu’er tea? Ann Sit from Fook Ming Tong gave us some valuable insights.

Sit is a tea sommelier and Fook Ming Tong’s general manager. She began learning about Chinese tea as a teenager, and her qualification in tea connoisseurship has been recognised by the government of Mainland China. At the moment, she dedicates her time scouring tea plantations around China to source the best teas for her customers.

Sounds good.  I don't know what Fook Ming Tong is, and that makes a lot of difference, but let's move on from that (after pointing out that the first Google search entry describes it as a Hong Kong tea shop).

What’s the distinguishing characteristic of pu’er? 

Tea leaves are mainly categorised by the degree of fermentation. The production process of pu’er involves procedures such as picking, withering, fixing, kneading, drying. In the end, it’s heaped up and stored before it gets fermented. In comparison to oolong, green tea, shoumei, tieguanyin and other tea varieties, pu’er is fermented the most. Industry professionals call it black tea or post fermented tea.

In fermentation, the stimuli in tea leaves like chlorophyll are decomposed. Pu’er is usually dark brown in colour. It tastes mild and smooth. Thanks to the long fermentation period, there’s also a deep fragrance to the tea.

At first read this is all wrong, but taken in the right way it works better.  Fermentation is a main input to pu'er, but it's not clear that she doesn't really mean oxidation here, or isn't mixing the two terms and inputs.  Pu'er isn't typically oxidized, but any background on pu'er should make it a bit clearer which process is being referenced, since fermentation is often used incorrectly to specify oxidation.

The processing steps are fine.  Kneading should really be shaping, since it's more conventional to call a different leaf bruising step in black tea processing kneading, intended to break open the plant cells to allow air contact with the cell contents, and resulting oxidation.  Pu'er is made using the other steps, then after a pan-frying fixing step it's shaped into that twisted leaf form.  It's probably not so bad to call that shaping step kneading; the different use of terms is minor.

In the next sentence, about tea types, Tie Guan Yin is a type of oolong, and Shou Mei is white tea, so it mixes types and broad categories in an odd way, but that's still fine.  Saying that pu'er is a type of hei cha--black tea, or dark tea, from the Chinese categorization system that calls oxidized teas red instead of black--sort of works, and sort of doesn't.  Some people think it's a version of that, but it's more common in China to use hei cha to designate a range of other types, like Liu Bao, Fu brick teas, and so on.  Again this is sort of splitting hairs; plenty of people use this categorization that she mentions, it's just that others wouldn't see it that way.  In "the West" people argue if sheng pu'er is really hei cha, since it's only fermented after aging input, but they seem to miss some background too, as I see it.  We can just call pu'er pu'er, and leave the broad categories out of it.

The next part skips over that sheng pu'er exists, that not all pu'er is fermented in any way.  It circles back to including that, so it's just an odd initial framing choice, to get that mostly wrong.  Really you need to read those sentences a few times to sort out what she's really saying, and later it gets more confusing when sheng and shou descriptions are mixed together in different places.

How many types of pu’er are there?

Pu’er can be roughly divided into loose tea leaves and tea cake. After fermentation, tea cakes can be made using steam and machinery to flatten. Without shaping, it would be sold as loose leaves.

Some pu’er teas can be fermented longer than others. The dry room method puts leaves in an airy space for natural fermentation. Alternatively, some tea makers would ferment the tea manually by placing it in a room with high temperature and humidity. This step is called piling. The wet room method has the tea in a humidity-controlled space to speed up fermentation.

Loose leaves or tea cake can be further categorised into many more varieties. For example, raw (sheng) or green pu’er have a shorter post-fermenting period and would display a light green colour after brewing. As for tea cakes, there are many shapes available. Tea bricks are pressed into rectangular blocks, while tuo cha carries the form of mushroom caps.

This is all more right than wrong, but the degree of error included is puzzling.  Of course someone can see the distinction of loose and pressed pu'er as primary.  Most people would see the divide between sheng / raw and shou / shu / ripe / pre-fermented tea as more fundamental, but this part is still ok.  

The piling description of pre-fermentation of shu is too far off to accept in this way.  It's piled wet, with water added, not just stored in a humid room.

The reference to a "shorter post-fermenting period" really makes no sense.  You can sell sheng as completely unaged, as soon as you make it, not fermented through ordinary storage at all, so there is no period to reference.  Just referencing post-fermentation is misleading, as if there is some other treatment step.  You just hold onto the tea.  Within one year it's not really all that age / fermentation transitioned, regardless of storage climate, and after 25 to 30 years the process is relatively complete, with other changes happening in between.

Note that the light green reference is the wetted leaf color.  Sure, they're a bit green, where shou pu'er is brownish.  The brewed liquid color would be a pale yellow, and this isn't clear on which it's referencing.  Not much brewed tea liquid is actually green, but that can come up with Japanese green tea versions.

I like this reference to mushroom caps; tuos do look like that.  Usually they're referenced as bird's nest shaped, and I guess that also works.

the bottom is sort of cupped, so from the top it just looks like a ball

In the next section she says that people new to sheng should buy loose tea, which is fine, even though that's not how it usually tends to go in practice.  The she comments this, which doesn't work:

A tea cake costs at least $300. Some are even priced at several thousand dollars.

I wouldn't own a tea cake if it costs $300; that's way outside my budget.  That Xiaguan tuo shown (two different pictures of different versions) would often cost between $10 and $30-some for different versions of different ages, in online outlets.  They're not tea cakes though; those are 100 grams of tea, instead of a standard 357 grams for cakes (which varies).  I've just ran across mention that a famous Hong Kong shop, Yee On Tea, sells one of their aged Xiaguan tuos at the same age range (around 20 years old) for $60; that kind of thing would depend on different factors, like preferred storage input, and initial quality of the material.

I'd say the range of factory cakes, large-scale producer versions, is between $40 and 60, for new, moderate quality versions.  Those aren't ready to drink yet though, because that kind of tea requires aging.  Most Western boutique-oriented vendors sell their cake versions between $80 and $160, with fully aged versions falling into a higher level and broader range.  You can find high quality, limited production, high demand young (new) sheng cakes for $300 and up, but they are very much the exception.

What to look out for when buying loose leaves?

The most important element is that the leaves remain intact. There shouldn’t be too many broken leaf fragments, branches and petioles. You need to also give it a sniff. The leaves should smell fragrant instead of dull or sour. If you spot green mould, it means the leaves have gone bad and should not be bought. It would be ideal to taste the tea on the spot. The brewed tea has a rich and bright red colour. However dark the tea is, it should be clear enough for you to see the bottom of the cup.

If you spot any color of mold you shouldn't buy a tea.  Again this works ok for shou or aged sheng but for younger sheng the color range isn't right.  I just reviewed a Xiaguan tuocha from 2006 that's in a decent place for aging input, not fully through the process, but quite pleasant, and it's not "red" yet:

It's pretty far off the initial pale gold infusion color, but will seem closer to red in another decade, at 29 years old.  It might seem more desirable then, so maybe saying that at an optimum aged sheng should be darker works, but this isn't clarifying things for people who can't place those specifics.  Let's consider a 20 year old version stored in Malaysia that I reviewed a couple of years ago:

It's more fermented, redder, related to being stored in a humid place, but then the other 19 year old Xiaguan also was (stored in a different humid place, Bangkok instead of Malaysia).  Well-pressed tuochas seem to ferment a little slower, as hard-pressed iron cakes also do.  Oddly younger teas stored in the right way can darken (ferment quite a bit) even faster, as these 6 and 9 year old Dayi / Taetea 7542 sheng pu'er versions did:

Just brewing a tea light or strong will affect coloration quite a bit, so I don't mean to make too much of this tangent.  And loose stored sheng might well transition faster, making 20 year old versions more fermented and darker colored, as those two considerably younger cake versions--aged for less than a decade--just shown were.

Rating her content and input

Most of it is fine.  I don't think it works well as a general guide as it could, since so much is left out, and what it all means is only clear when you already know what it's saying.  The description of what shou pu'er is (a ripe or pre-fermented type) doesn't work at all here; it could hardly be less clearly explained.  The premise of it talking about higher quality range pu'er should be made clearer, which really doesn't work well for shou, since even better quality, higher demand versions aren't all that expensive, so it's a different theme.

Shou tends so much less expensive that finding any cake that costs significantly over $60 to 80 is a rarity, unless it has been extensively aged, which doesn't really help much with shou.  Of course there are plenty of outliers out there that cost over $100, but the average of what's on the market would be under 100, maybe even counting many aged versions.

The implication that she is mostly covering high quality tea range shifts things quite a bit.  I can go and buy good factory shou cakes for $40 to 50 in lots of places, but she's talking about other range, what is better yet.  Those same cakes would be kind of expensive in 15 to 20 years, so people see value in significant aging, even though it makes less and less difference past 3 or 4 years of early transition, for shou.  

Let's go back to the initial framing, the intro, and see what is implied:

Pu’er tea is arguably one of the most popular Chinese teas. Its pervasiveness across all social groups is reflected in the price difference of various options in the market.

Pu’er can be seen at any dim sum restaurant for ten dollars a pot, but the same tea can also be sighted in the form of a cake at auctions, with connoisseurs splashing hundreds of thousands dollars for it.

That last part seems high; spending thousands on a cake should be enough.  A desirable version from the 1930s might go for an outrageous price.

What does it tell us that the most basic range is ten dollars a pot?  That could be about right, for low-medium quality pu'er, sold at a medium cost scale restaurant.  

To discuss the quality range you are talking about you really need to specify what tea is selling for by cake, or as a price per gram, and from what kind of outlets.  That level of detail isn't brought up in this, beyond the vague claim that tea cakes might sell for $300 or more, in general, which again doesn't really work.  For higher demand, 20 or more year old cakes that's about right, or even some new material cakes from the more sought after origin areas, but for most of the market range that's way too high.  She was focused more on generalities related to pu'er, and the experience, not cost and buying issues, but to invoke the cost theme at all it's necessary to place whatever range you are describing.

Maybe this fails the most related to the implied purpose:  covering "Choosing Pu'er Tea."  The main advice this gives is to buy loose tea versions (called maocha, which is also a reference to semi-processed teas of other types), which sort of works, and also sort of doesn't.  Without it being clearer on the distinction between shou and sheng it couldn't possibly succeed.  You need to outline why brand new--unaged and unfermented--sheng might be a viable selection, and why plenty of other range is only consumed as well aged tea, back to the boutique versus factory tea theme.  It would help to treat the cost issue a bit, versus just saying that it all might be expensive.  Xiaguan tuochas selling for between $10 and 30 are not so costly; standard cakes priced between $80 and $120 are less affordable, even though the per-gram higher end range of both isn't so different, which brings up the sampling theme, that vendors often sell smaller quantities for people to try.

Maybe I should re-write a better version.  I've written sheng and shou basics posts before, (on exploring sheng pu'er, sheng pu'er aging exploration, but it's been years, so I could run back through that, with an eye towards how to source tea during the exploration phase.

I ran across this looking for another photo; the visits are a favorite memory of those tastings

New to the tea world! Any suggestions?

 

This title is taken from a Reddit post title, which states an obvious, repeating request, that turns up there a few times a week on r/tea.  They could just program a bot to respond that this is asked multiple times a week, so scrolling back through posts, even without searching, would turn up another half-dozen related threads.

I've been considering writing a basic, thousand word length answer to this question, so why not.  Years ago I wrote about this same post theme already, here, but that might've been based on a less "starting from scratch" perspective, more about moving from owning a dozen boxes of tea-bag teas into better loose tea.

that person's starting exposure (from the Reddit post; they said this):

I got myself one of those tea/fruit infuser bottles. I know loose leaf is probably the best way to go but I seen videos where it seems like you have to brew like 3 times over for that cup of tea. So I’m wanting to get more info and maybe places to look to get a good sampler to expand my pallet. But again besides tea bags that’s all my knowledge I have.  (For context celestial brand of green tea peach, hibiscus tea seems like the only ones I have gotten and often drink),

So they're kind of starting from only having tried Lipton before, and that herb tea / tisane; that comes up a lot.  This won't get too far into explaining what Celestial Seasonings herb blends and tea and herb blends are all about (both highly processed material in tea bags, essentially flavored tea).  That's a decent range to start on, but it's not "real tea."  

It's a really minor point but it's palate, not pallet; one is your sense of taste, the other is a wooden frame structure used in shipping and warehousing, and a pallete is an artist's range of paint colors that they're working with.

Real tea is any processed variation of a Camellia Sinensis plant, of variety Sinensis or Assamica.  It's generally in these broad type ranges:  black tea, green, oolong, white, and hei cha, with pu'er either a type of hei cha or related to it.  People tend to include yellow tea but you can skip over that; it's just partly fermented green tea, steamed and left to change some.  There's also no need to worry about oxidation levels or roast inputs early on; later you can sort all of that out more.  Drinking flavored teas or teas mixed with herbs is fine, but I'm not covering that here.

a current favorite Thai black tea; not all that similar to Lipton

initial types to explore:  people in discussion threads always suggest what they are into, so there probably is no clear answer to this.  Different answers work for different reasons.  One response is to get into better quality tin teas, like Harney and Sons (for blends and flavored teas, or some plain teas), or Ahmad (for Indian teas).  

I usually suggest flavorful, easy to brew, broadly appealing types, like light rolled oolong (like Tie Guan Yin), or Dian Hong (Yunnan black tea).  For some people shu pu'er is easy to approach and appealing, and for others it's way too earthy.  That and well-roasted Wuyi Yancha (Fujian oolong, like Da Hong Pao or Shui Xian) both make for a good cross-over from coffee experience, matching parts of the flavor.  Shu pu'er is earthy and has depth and rich feel like coffee, it's just not the same, and highly roasted "rock oolong," Wuyi Yancha, matches up with that roasted effect in coffee versions like French roast.

Then others recommend almost anything, white teas, green versions, other oolong, Darjeeling; whatever they're into.  Sheng pu'er is not a good place to start, a little too intense, bitter, astringent, and varied in character to pick up quickly.  But most of the rest of the range could work.  In general more whole leaf teas are better, representing a higher quality level, and those will be lower in astringency level (less rough in feel, which seems like bitterness to people who aren't clear on the distinction).  But early on seeking out high quality examples doesn't matter as much as trying out different types range, and exploring from there.

2006 Xiaguan tuocha (sheng pu'er); about a decade away from being age-transitioned enough

brewing advice:  there are two types of brewing, Western and Gongfu, and it probably makes the most sense to start using a Western approach.  The limitation with that is that some tea types don't work out as well prepared that way, especially sheng pu'er (the one I said to avoid initially), and high quality twisted style oolong (Wuyi Yancha, Dan Cong).  Really any very broken leaf or flavored tea is better prepared Western style, and a lot of other range works out better Gongfu brewed, but it matters less for some types, and for lower quality teas.

What are the differences in the two processes?  I skipped over that part.  Western brewing is the one teaspoon per cup method (or using about 3 grams per 250 ml, put another way), and Gongfu brewing uses a higher proportion and many short infusions.  People typically brew 6 to 8 grams of tea in a 90 or 100 ml device, using short infusion times (10 to 20 seconds, versus 3 to 5 minutes for Western brewing), and brew a dozen rounds or more.  Or less, if they use a lower proportion; the proportion and timing balance with each other.

a gaiwan and some cups, in a Japanese small bowl style, but Chinese cups can be similar

For someone very early in moving past tea bags just exploring Western brewing would be enough, but if someone, even in that situation, wanted to delve into the whole experience range they could explore both brewing approaches.  That leads to the next topic.

what gear is required?:  you need some way to heat water, and using an electric kettle is standard.  But putting a pan on the stove also works, and for more aesthetic, ceremonial Gongfu brewing people tend to use charcoal and a cast iron kettle device, even indoors, even though that sounds crazy.

a favorite tea friend and her family, with a lot of very aesthetic teaware around

Next you need a brewing device, a teapot, or the equivalent.  Old-style ceramic teapots, like someone's grandmother or aunt would use back in the 20th century, would still work well.  Or glass versions are equivalent, or there are lots of other options for Western brewing.  I use a single-serving, for-purpose ceramic cup and basket device, with a saucer that doubles as a lid.  But I used a French press at work for years, and those work well, and own a glass teapot and tea bottle that are also fine.

basket style Western infuser devices; one I used from a glass teapot's basket insert

For Gongfu brewing there are three main options:  a gaiwan (lidded cup), clay pot (yixing is one well-known clay type), and the Japanese version of a small teapot, a kyusu.  A friend used a small glass teapot, shaped like the traditional Chinese clay versions, that worked just as well, for brewing 100 ml or so at a time.  A gaiwan is a nice option to start with, especially because a basic, fully functional, 100 ml, white porcelain version typically costs about $10 through Western online outlets.  They take practice to use, since you can pour it across your fingertips before you get it, but not very much, and there are lots of online video references about that.

To be clear you can use anything as a brewing device.  You could heat water in a pan, then put the tea in the pan, or brew in one mug and strain it into another.  Other options would probably seem appealing even early on, but the differences are minor.  Later subtle differences do tend to matter, factors like heat retention.

Cups are a complicated subject.  You can use a coffee mug, or small British style teacup, or something plainer and a bit rounder, but it's natural to shift to small Chinese or Japanese style bowl themed cups before very long.  At first setting this aside would work.

sources (where to buy tea):  this is really complicated.  At a local loose-leaf, specialty tea shop, or Chinatown shop works well, but for most people there isn't one nearby.  So it's on to the long list of online vendors different people see as natural starting points.  Yunnan Sourcing is one; a market-style Chinese tea outlet.  Rishi and Adagio are American plain and flavored tea outlets.  Commercial tins or boxed of tea are ok; Ahmad really is decent, or Dilmah is for Ceylon.  

market-style sites can be a bit much; Yunnan Sourcing sells thousands of tea versions

To me buying good quality tea at a good value makes the most sense, and overseas outlets can work even better for good value.  Hatvala and Viet Sun are good Vietnamese options; something like that.  Or Yunnan Sourcing's competitors can work out; King Tea Mall, or Chawang Shop, or White2Tea for pu'er.  Years ago I wrote about producer-direct sourcing options, here, and Wuyi Origin (for Wuyishan rock oolong) is the main option not mentioned in this yet.  It's better to start with more basic versions of teas than they sell.  For people seeking out good quality Wuyi Yancha and Wuyishan area (Fujian) black teas that's the place.

At the next level a lot of different kinds of curator vendors or type-specialists make sense.  Seven Cups is well regarded (a generalist source in the US), or Essence of Tea or Tea Encounter in the UK, again leaning towards pu'er specialization.  Pu'er is a common final-stage type preference, but again I'd try out oolong and black teas first, and maybe dabble in white and green before moving on to that.  Shu pu'er, the pre-fermented type, versus sheng / raw, is approachable--not bitter and astringent--but also quite earthy.

Then the list of decent sources never ends.  I think Liquid Proust is worth checking out (with some emphasis on pu'er; that never drops out).  In the EU Tea Mania is a good small outlet, based in Switzerland, and Moychay based out of the Netherlands is a good Russian market-style vendor.  

To jump ahead to high quality range the Trident Cafe and Bookseller is a great curator option, but again I'd avoid starting out at the top, even if budget isn't a concern.  There's no going up from there, and there's no harm in exploring teas with some quality limitations earlier on, to see how the whole range works out.  If you start out with Wuyi Origin Wuyi Yancha you are ruined for drinking Chinatown shop Da Hong Pao or Shui Xian, it just won't be good enough, and that's an interesting exploration phase to go through.  Learning about typical flaws is part of your experience curve; you lose something giving that up.  Not just something abstract either; it can help you place limitations in other tea types later on.

Chinese online sales is a strange range.  Teasenz is a good example of a Western-style outlet based out of China.  ITea World and Oriental Leaf are newer forms of outlets, focusing a lot on sample sets to get people new to tea introduced (or hooked, more pejoratively).  Farmerleaf is a popular option (based in China), again focused mainly on pu'er, but you can buy great black and white tea from such a source, usually.

teas from different production areas, and related sources:  I've not mentioned Japanese tea; in any list of source references, or any type discussion, most of the range has to drop out, or the discussion runs so long.  Yunomi is a popular Western facing option, and Ippodo is a Japan based larger distributor that's well regarded.

I live in Thailand most of the time (and in Honolulu the rest), and there are good Thai teas, and good Thai sources.  Tea Side is the main Western facing, higher end option, and 101 Plantation works as a way to check out what large scale producers selling directly are like.

And I've glossed over Indian teas.  Golden Tips might be a good generalist source, Gopaldhara is my favorite Darjeeling producer, and you can try Assam directly from a producer from Halmari.  Of course options keep going; there are countless small Indian tea vendors.  Herbs and Kettles is a US based on ran by an online friend.  I would check India-based options before doing too much with US sources though; you can buy teas at volume for not so much if you work around a large shipping cost addition.  Whenever you buy from abroad you just need to buy a bit more to get the lower per-volume rate to be more of an input than shipping, which is why most set minimums for "free" shipping around $100 or so.

Good tea comes from other places, from Nepal, Indonesia, Georgia (the country); the list keeps going.  Of course no one is going to start there, so it's all out of this discussion scope.  What-Cha is probably a good vendor option for checking what else is out there, if they're still around.

Tea is made in the US but I'd set that aside until later too.  Not much is, so that only relates to some quite ordinary mass-produced range from South Carolina, one specialty tea vendor in Mississippi (the Great Mississippi Tea Company; their tea is good), and tea from Hawaii, which is really expensive.  Of course every absolute generality I express here is partly wrong, as that one was; lots of people are growing just a little tea in the US, mostly in the South, and nothing stops them from selling some.

learning, mastering brewing technique:  this just takes practice.  If you want to take up learning background information as a secondary interest that's fine too though; it can complement your own direct experience, which is by far the main input.  I've written about tea reference sources here , covering some of what changed over the years after that first sources post, one part of what was covered in that beginner's guide.

Watching Youtube videos can help with parts you really need to get down quickly (eg. burning your fingers using a gaiwan), or they might shed light on brewing temperature issues.  For Gongfu brewing most people just use boiling point water, all the time, maybe except for green tea, but it's more common to use a range of different temperatures for different tea types when brewing Western style.

varying approaches to tea:  this is a higher level sort of theme; people approach tea in vastly different ways.  Early on many people want to try a good selection of all of the range, and to master basic brewing forms, and learn about storage issues, etc.  That's fine, but it can be like trying to drink the ocean.  You see lists of the ten basic or most famous traditional Chinese teas, so it sounds like just trying 10 versions is a clearly defined milestone, but no two lists identify all the same teas.  Almost no vendor would sell all ten, of any given set, and quality level varies a lot, and so on.  

Sampling works as a good approach early on, but most often those large market-style vendors offer samples to purchase, and buying a set is much easier than sorting through 2500 versions to identify where to start.  That's why using a region-specific vendor like Hatvala early on works out well; you could buy a half dozen of 30 or 40 Vietnamese tea types they carry, and that set would represent some of the rest.  It could include black tea, green, oolong, pu'er, or whatever you like, and you'd see what you had left behind, you could scan their whole product list.  The other curator site I'd mentioned, Trident Bookseller and Cafe, works for viewing a lot of tea range in a half dozen web pages, but their typical cost range would be around 50 cents per gram, instead of 10 to 20 for more intro-oriented, moderate quality level range.

cost as a factor:  I can't really help clarify how this works, because there are really dozens of types of vending outlets, and thousands of types of tea versions and products.  In general higher quality level teas will cost more, but value--quality in relation to price--varies by vendor.  In physical shops you tend to pay a little more for the extra service level, and to cover the extra overhead.  Some online sources represent a great value, and others terrible value; they can set the mark-up however they want, or they can even lie about what a tea actually is.  With quality levels also varying so much you can't get any feel for value within the first year or so of exploring tea.  You can accept others' input about this, and later confirm or reject their input based on your own experience.

It's a lot cheaper to buy more volume of tea at one time; that stays the same across most vendor types.  Then I also just said that sampling is a good approach to try a lot early on, buying tiny amounts, maybe 10 or 15 grams at a time.  There's no contradiction there, if there seems to be.  You end up paying a little more to try more range earlier on, usually.

You can buy really cheap tea at high volume from atypical types of sources (at a Chinese or Indian market, direct from producers, from some market-style vendors, through online auctions, whatever it is).  I've bought a kilogram or more of a tea for each of the last two years, basic black teas from Thailand and Vietnam.  I don't necessarily recommend this.  Until you know what kinds of tea you like, and how to evaluate sources, you might just buy awful tea, or decent tea in a style that you don't like.  If you are spending $20 on a kilogram it's only so much money wasted, but if it's the absolute lowest quality tea on the market there may be health issues to be concerned about, eg. pesticide contamination.  The highest exposure risk occurs when you drink a lot of one unsafe kind of tea, just that set of circumstances.

So this part everyone needs to sort out for themselves.  People tend to explore organically, to try a couple of types of tea and keep going from there.  Some people never move beyond Harney and Sons flavored versions of tea sold in tins, and that's ok.  Most British people aren't aware that not all tea comes in tea bags, which is fine.  It's a shame to never try better black teas, and oolongs, but it's just a drink choice, just one that a lot of people value quite a bit, and explore at great length.

rolled Tie Guan Yin and twisted Dan Cong oolong, both very much worth trying

what I'm not mentioning:  most of the other related factors, most of what a tea enthusiast would learn over the first two years or so.  This hasn't touched on tea storage issues yet, concerns related to using water with a low or high mineral content, how long you can leave damp leaves sit around (for half a day is ok), and many other things.  Cold-brewing is a nice option, and thermos brewing can work, or even simmering some versions of tea, but I'd advise against starting there.  Masala chai is nice, spiced black tea, similar to the "pumpkin spice" theme, which usually is simmered, and you can make that at home, but again it's no place to start.  Versions of hei cha could work out even as a starting point, but someone might as well try basic black teas and oolongs first, or move on to green and white versions.

I'll mention a few other issues in relation to photos that are handy, but in general the idea here is to support getting started.  The rest will come.

In a Chinatown shop, or anywhere else I guess, one might wonder if large-jar storage is ok.  It's not ideal, but it's still ok, especially for buying mid-range quality tea.  For early in exploration quality issues are a lot more of a concern than storage form.  Better tea tends to not be sold like this, but then you don't need to focus on high quality tea early on anyway.  

I'd go for it, exploring through this form of purchasing, even though I've had some really bad experiences doing so (especially related to the shop pictured; a Lapsang Souchong was made with fake smoke scent added, that was so strong and foul that it threw off the smell of all my luggage).  That's part of it too; the learning curve involves trying bad tea too, and other directions that don't work out.  A lesson learned from that experience:  even if you are in a hurry, and trying inexpensive random things, and a bit thrown off by walking around NYC in a snowstorm, you should take a whiff of the large jar, to make sure nothing is really wrong with the tea you are buying.

This shows how I brew tea, using a gaiwan, a cup, and a thermos (along with our cat and my daughter).  That's all you need, and for Western brewing a single stainless steel basket and a mug is enough.  There's no need to worry about using a scale, strainer, thermometer, brewing tray, tongs, sharing pitcher (gong dao bei), or any of the rest.  

Comparison tasting, trying two teas together, is a nice learning tool for later on, but it will make more sense once the basics are clearer, what types are, how to brew, and what some basic versions should taste like.

There are countless other brewing devices, gravity feed versions, simple pitchers (like this), tea bottle based; it never ends.  You can use any of them you like.  The small stainless steel ball version isn't ideal because tea leaves can't expand, and you can't put longer, whole leaves in them, because they won't fit, but most other forms are similar in effectiveness.

Loose, whole leaf black tea.  This style is similar to Dian Hong, Yunnan black tea, but this version is from Thailand.  Teas like this can be entirely different than tin-based ground up material versions, and are generally much better.

that one friend again; she visits Bangkok this week, and this is my favorite Chinatown shop

If you go in a Chinatown shop, or any shop, they'll first ask what kind of tea type you like.  If you don't have an answer for that things can get a bit stuck.  Just make of any given situation whatever you can, and more helpful vendors will be happy to help you sort through some basics early on, mapping roughly what sounds good to what they sell.  

In general you don't need to buy anything at any shop, regardless of how much tea you've tasted, but out of consideration I'll always buy a little if I've tasted more than one tea version.  If I try something and it's not good and staff isn't helpful I might just walk back out instead, buying nothing.

Some teas take different pressed forms, or can appear different in other ways, ground up, or varying in color.  This is sheng pu'er, the version I've been saying people shouldn't try right away, since oolong and black tea are more natural places to start (to me).  People shouldn't be put off or afraid to try anything, though, if they feel interested.  White tea cakes look similar to this, most often shou mei, and those are very approachable, another nice starting point.

The only storage form that you should absolutely avoid buying tea in relation to is when it's sitting out in open bins.  This degree of air contact is way too much; this tea will go dead fast.  For your own storage at home that doesn't matter too much, as long as the tea is well sealed, but the ziplock style bag form of plastic (also in this picture, in the lower right) isn't as good as it might seem, since that can "breathe," even the freezer-use versions.  Mylar or multi-layer bags are good.

There is no natural place to end this; I could reference another 20 photos and the part of the story they tell about tea experience.  I'll end by sharing a picture of the one thing I most typically leave out:  me, sharing tea with a favorite friend.  It's even the friend you've seen twice here, while visiting from Vietnam last year.