Trying to Lower Your Standards In Puerh Is Not Easy These Days

This year I essentially entered into an exercise of lowering my puerh tastes.  I needed to restock puerh which, I found out, has gotten quite expensive during the many years I was away from the puerh scene.  At first, I tried to just restock some of the cakes that I have consumed but they were either worth billions and zillions of dollars or were no longer on the market or turned out to be waning with age.  I managed to nab some nice puerh that I missed out on way back in 2006 but even that has managed to increase 30% in only 6 months!

Basically, I part consciously and part unwillingly, employed the following two techniques with the end goal of lowering my tastes.  First, I went in search of my old friends, semiaged factory puerh.  Secondly, I did that from those old sketchy western puerh vendors (here and here) that were remnants of a time when vendors would actually stock questionable puerh.

At first, I thought I did pretty good at lowering my standards but then a few things happened that kind of blew that up…

First, I noticed that some of that dingy, lowly, but so awesomely delicious, factory teas are giving me some sketchy pesticide symptoms that, although often super super subtle, I am finding them harder to ignore these days.  As a result, I only slum it once in a while with the most questionable cakes.

Secondly, my wife likes puerh, we drink together every morning, and she simply won’t drink puerh under a certain standard.  I may be able to lower my own standard, but my wife’s is totally out of my control!

Thirdly, I am getting more concerned about what factory quality puerh can do to one’s health.  This is especially true when my family is consuming it (my whole family prefers puerh).  My health is one thing, my family’s is another.

Fourthly, I am finding myself continuing to drink from my dwindling stash of puerh I had amassed from 10 years ago as a result.

Sigh….

In the end I am content with having even more daily drinkers around- they are what they are.  This much, I knew when I started my search.   Especially at work where 1- I often have little time to mindfully drink puerh the way I used to 2- I crave the vigor of factory qi especially as it seems to harmoniously pair with my bustling work environment and 3- I am not sharing with loved ones when in ones place of work.  This is where a lot of these factory purchases have ended up and I am enjoying them, a lot in this environment.

I hope to prepare a drinking report of these everyday drinkers which I have accumulated over the past year soon.

From sampling some of 2017, I would guess, from what I tired, that you are paying around 3-4 times more for the same level of quality you would get in 2007 and remember those prices were just before the puerh bubble burst.  If there are any long term puerh drinkers out there, would you say that estimate is about right?

With a bunch of factory puerh everyday drinkers accumulated, I hope to change gears a bit and focus more on some higher quality puerh.

I hope that you will join me in this direction on the blog in the coming year?

Much Peace