white2tea: It’s All About the Blend, Stupid!

It really only took me one sample included in my order to realize that some of the popularity of white2tea puerh lies in its blends.  In a Western market educated almost exclusively in valuing single estate and single villages/ areas, white2tea found a gap in the market.  The good work of Scott of Yunnan Sourcing has educated us since 2009 about the value of single village/area puerh.  No doubt David from Essence of Tea has taught us how to appreciate a single tree or estate puerh.  However, it must have been the foresight of Paul of white2tea to see that there was a gap in the market for blended puerh.

For me, to determine the true quality of a product, evaluation of the raw unblended leaves seem the easiest and best way to make such a judgement.  This is exactly what I did with my order of 2017 Pussy.  It is probably the highest quality and maybe most expensive of all non-blended puerh that white2tea has sold and for me, it passed the mustard test.  However, almost all the puerh that I used to and continue to consume and around 95% of the cakes I own are blends of either producing areas or factories.  An exception is a few particularly exceptionally pure puerh and high quality cakes of Yunnan Sourcing Brand puerh and Essence of Tea as well as a few others.  I prefer the blended things or maybe I am just used to such things.

For the blender essentially they should be able to create more depth in their product at a lower cost by blending it.  For the drinker they are rewarded with much more complexity and depth presumably for a much lower price.  For white2tea, lower price is not always a guarantee with their blends and the rising prices of white2tea’s puerh is proof of this.  With that being said, I have never tried a blended puerh that was as chaotic, interesting, multifaceted,and unusual as I did with the 2017 4 am.

After just one session with 4 am I realized that I probably missed the point in my first order.  While sipping the fragrant deliciousness which is 2017 Pussy I chuckle to myself “It’s All About the Blend, Stupid!”

Peace