Black Friday Puerh Purchases: The Hunter and the Hunted

 I find the Black Friday/ Cyber Monday marketing of Western facing puerh vendors rather interesting.  I had written about it for a few years in a row a few years back.  The last time I really paid attention to Black Friday puerh sales was probably the last time I actually purchased something from Black Friday which I believe was a cake of 2020 Tea Encounter Guafengzhai Chaping Gushu.  The real reason is for the lack of attention is that I have actually purchased less puerh (good job!) and almost no fresh puerh over the last two years.  The exception being this interesting 2023 Tea Encounter DuoYiShu there is only 2 cakes left, and it’s even on sale now and I can’t believe this is not sold out yet… for those interested in fresh puerh Black Friday Cyber Monday sales!

Another reason I’ve not paid too much attention to Black Friday puerh sales is because the vendors I purchase the most from don’t even have Black Friday /Cyber Monday sales!  I mentioned that TeasWeLike is my hands down favourite purerh vendor - they don’t entertain sales at all and are pretty straightforward in their marketing for which I put 100% trust in them.  

It might be surprising to some that Puerh.uk has increasingly and incrementally gained my trust since re-launching over two years.  I now openly consider them my second favourite puerh vendor.  It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise considering it’s been the vendor I have frequented the second most in the past two years.  Just like I’ve said before I have not tried a puerh from them that I have not enjoyed on some level- I have never received a bad puerh from them, they have all been good.  In fact, quite the opposite,  some of the best cakes I own have come from Puerh.uk.  When I purchased these favourite puerh cakes years ago they were just languishing on his poor site for weeks.  Paolo owner of Puerh.uk had to build some trust and he has.

A few years ago, right away, there were a few things I really liked about Puerh.uk.  The first is that it shook up the English facing puerh market and offered some aggressive competition (mainly to TeasWeLike).  Competition is usually a good thing and I think Puerh.uk has proven this by now.  Another cool thing I liked about Puerh.uk is that they were bringing in single acquired tongs from collectors and selling them off by the cake, quarter cake, 25g and 7g samples.  The other vendors out there are really not focused on hunting down puerh on such a small scale for market due to a variety of factors.  Over the last few years Paolo has forged a closer relationship with some of these collectors.  One such collector, I have referred to him here on the blog as “old man” has particularly satisfying puerh storage conditions with his hot dry Taiwanese stored puerh.  As such I have acquired a decent amount of puerh from said “Old Man”.  

As part of a promotion this week, Puerh.uk is offering a two tier buy-in to be the first to purchase some limited supplies of cakes that won’t be immediately offered to the public.  It’s marketed as TCE2 and as the site states:

Why this mechanism? We like to reward loyalty and although we will continue to do public releases for some teas, the TCE² teas would likely sell out immediately (because they’re both limited quantity and exceptionally high price/quality), so we prefer for these to go to our most loyal customers, the ones that are happy to trust us the most.

My first reaction to this whole thing is that it really reeks of marketing.  I despise the idea that access is only offered to those with money to get in the gate.  It goes against the competitive argument for Puerh.uk.  But they do have a point because old man storage 2004 ChenYuan Son Pin Hao sat on the site for weeks so did the rare 2003 ChenYuan Hao Yibang now some things sell out really fast these days.  But aren’t I one of Paolo’s most loyal customers???!

There is one cake (and people who have been into puerh for a long time will know it) it’s that 2006 Chen-He Guang Tang Yiwu Chawang.  It hooked me… but wait I’m not buying that stupid membership selling out my soul thing… then Paolo tells me the three cakes in the hunter tier are all from no other than old man’s storage…. I picked up some of that famous 2006 Chen-He Guang Tang Yiwu Chawang and the 2014 ChengShunHao Xigui… (looks like there is still one left) … I guess the hunter has become the hunted? Hahahaha

Peace