After loading up on mainly semiaged Lincang puerh from
Shuangjiang Mengku Factory purchased at Yunnan Sourcing (here, here, and
here). I turned my attention to an often
overlooked puerh tea vendor that I have never ordered from before, Awazon (not
to be confused with Amazon). At first I
was quite surprised at what I had found there.
I noticed that there were some obvious deals to be had with some of
their factory puerh offerings.
I did a bit of internet research and found out that there are
very few reviews of Awazon puerh. Most
of what can be found is on TeaChat and Steepster and is not very favorable for
the teas but the service and shipping were heavily praised. This understandably turned many away from
this vendor in the past.
However upon looking through Awazon’s selection of puerh I
noticed a few cheap factory bings that were given positive reviews by some of
the old school puerh bloggers years and years ago. Also I noticed that they have a large
selection of 2004-2008 sheng puerh, just what I’m searching for!
So I place an order of these cakes, a few others that are
obvious deals, and a few others that I am just curious about. It turns out that out of the seven puerh tea
cakes I ordered, 4 are the last cakes or sell out within a day or so after
ordering (I can’t tell because they don’t show how many are in stock), 2 are
not very drinkable right now, and 1 I enjoy and reorder.
Because the first order went surprisingly well I order 5
more different sampler cakes in the reorder. Three out of those 5 are seeming
the last ones.
At that point, I feel like something strange is happening
here. It feels a lot like Awazon is
simply clearing out their inventory. 7
out of 13 puerh that I ordered are last cakes.
It seems like they are maybe selling off their own last cakes that they
were holding on to or maybe it is just a coincidence and their inventory was
not that deep to begin with but it is really really odd. And the price of the puerh seems at the low
end of the puerh’s actual value. Have
you ever been to a clearance sale that is just filled with last items that the
seller just marks down to get rid of them (or in this case just doesn’t raise
the price in years)? It sort of feels like this is what is happening at Awazon.
It looks like Awazon is long past its prime and has little
stock left. It seems like a business of
just selling off remaining stock without engaging too much in restocking new
young puerh. I think the increase of
puerh prices throughout the years may have impacted the business model of
Awazon which is focused mainly on affordable puerh. Its just a guess but its plausible given
my ordering history with them.
The puerh tea for sale at Awazon is a real mind field to
navigate, probably another reason it isn’t frequented by Westerners. First you have to watch out for all the autumn
pressings, there are tons of that stuff on Awazon. Almost all of their cakes are Autumn and some
them say they are spring but are actually Autumn as well! Also because many of the cakes are simply
priced so low and are still available you have to expect that these are not the
cream of the crop- those ones are long gone.
Check expectations reasonably.
But even worse is the fact that you just know that there will be some
cakes in there that are just undrinkable.
So the whole exercise of buying some of these Awazon cakes is a gamble
at best.
But when you have very little puerh in stock and you are
just looking for some everyday drinkers the risk seems calculated. So far I think I have done quite well in this
gambling act which has left me with an interesting selection of decent, dry
Kunming stored, affordable, everyday drinkers.
Expect a thorough reporting in the coming weeks and
months. Who knows there might even be
some goodies left for you when I’m done?
Peace
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