*I wrote most of this up a few months ago before COVID 19
hit the world….
More “Single Grove”Puerh Tea
New puerh marketing language which is actually descriptive
and tells us something about the product but has a marketing feel to it as
well. This screams both unique (the
one-and-only) and exclusive and often limited but does it really tell us about
the puerh?? Again this is a bit of
marketing language even if it is somewhat informative.
The Return of the Bulang
Lao Man E ruled the strong puerh category in the west since the 2010s. In the 2000s Bulang was the strong puerh of choice. Look back at the old half Dipper posts to see what that was all about. I predict a come back of Bulang as I stated here.
The Rise of the Experiential Puerh Sampler
Lao Man E ruled the strong puerh category in the west since the 2010s. In the 2000s Bulang was the strong puerh of choice. Look back at the old half Dipper posts to see what that was all about. I predict a come back of Bulang as I stated here.
The Rise of the Experiential Puerh Sampler
I defended the experimental drinker in this post a few
months ago here. Cwyn talked about the ZERG in her 2020 predictions
(which these posts are a bit of a homage too). I also predict the rise of experiential drinkers.
More Discounted
themed Sample Packages and Whole Line
There will be more pressure for vendors to get all their freshly picked puerh to us before Black Friday ( a commenter on the blog first made this point). I think we will see much more discounted full line sample packages from the vendors this year.
Whole like discounted packages Tea Encounter, Puerh.sk,
Bitterleaf. Yunnan Sourcing does by area
but might offer more discount on multi area or full lines. White2tea might do something like a themed
packages aka Smooth aka Bold aka Bitter packages or whole inventory tea type-
All White Tea, All Yancha, All Shu puerh sample packages.
Marketing to the
“Shibal Biyong” (aka the “Fuck It” Purchase)
“Shibal Biyoung” is a phrase that has gained much traction
in South Korea the last few years but has special meaning these days. It is basically the spontaneous purchase of
something expensive and unnecessary done spontaneously to make you feel better because the future is bleak (see here and here). I think there will be a lot more Shibal Biyong puerh purchases this year.
White2tea is good at this because their marketing offers a
strong and spontaneous call to action. I
think we might see a lot more marketing to the Shibal Biyong…. Fuck it… right
in to the cart!
**** A recent prediction I made last month is that due to
the pandemic we will finally see lower
puerh prices in 2020. Turns out I
will probably be wrong as there is still strong demand mainly due to drought
conditions.****
Vendor Predictions
Yunnan Sourcing
They did a lot of different things in 2019… this year will
be mainly just towing this new direction… of course I expect to read and maybe
even taste some new discovered areas and puerh producing towns. Out of all my predictions of 2019, I
predicted surprisingly a decent amount of Yunnan Sourcing’s new direction.
white2tea
Will brilliantly intertwine politics and puerh naming and
art as he did in 2016. I don’t think
Paul has the balls to have umbrellas showing up on his wrappers but he is
brilliant enough to get a touch political without picking sides. **** Okay this prediction is a bit freaky
because he DID put umbrellas on his first 2020 cake! I kind of have goose bumps right now… Were they rainy day umbrellas… or Hong Kong
umbrellas… I’m pretty sure the former of the two.
I also think they
will do something new with their Black Friday Puerh Promotion. I was wrong about this one this year so I’m
just going to repeat it until its true… hahhaha… I predicted that Paul was
going to press puerh into lots of gimmicky shapes in my 2019 predictions. It turned out that gimmicky shape was just
lots of bamboo puerh….
David of the Essence
of Tea will become A Jedi…
Chawangshop will
actually press a few new puerh or release some they are aging themselves something
they haven’t done since 2016?ish
Tea Encounter
will offer more in East Yiwu and Border Tea (see this post). I think we might even get a few different
blends from Tiago.
…These two old puerh stalwarts won’t do anything out of the
ordinary but what they are doing is pretty awesomely already…
Tea Urchin will
just continue to release new puerh completely under the radar as they always do
while having almost everyone completely forget that they exist.
Puerh.sk will
continue to bring us small runs of Gushu from places that are more specific in
location that we didn’t even knew existed.
There you have it… let’s see how this all unfolds…
Peace
6 comments:
I think he was born a Jedi actually . :D :D:D
The Tea Urchin thing, it's almost spooky.
Curigane,
David was born with a high level of midi-chlorians. It’s really that simple.
Peace
Unknown,
With no social media presence and slow to rise prices, Tea Urchin is like a Ghost town with gold still in the ground.
I hope to post more this year on them.
Peace
Matt,
You havent mentioned the relentless rise of "sourced" and "curated" puer. Most bloggers write about nothing else these days. Although its unclear what this special processing actually involves it certainly bumps up the price. Standard puer was ok for many years but now the sourced and curated stuff is taking over.
Or maybe....its just Blogger Hype
Anonymous,
The terms are more descriptive of what vendors are actually doing but they have become much more trendy and market speak lately.
Terms like “curate” 13 years ago was reserved for those who work in museums and art galleries almost exclusively. It might have even been a bit awkward to hear it applied else where at that time.
13 years ago in every restaurant it was only called a “wine list” now it is more commonly called a “curated wine selection”. Anyways this issue is just as much to do about the restaurant, beverage, and retail sectors as it has to do with puerh.
Scott was way ahead of his time when he called his puerh company Yunnan SOURCING back then..... but that’s exactly what he does.
I propose a name change to Yunnan Sourcing and Curating Co to keep up with the times. It would have to also be stylized as well (like white2tea). So cool man....
Peace
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