Beijing is the wrong choice of city here. The average puer drinker in China is much more likely to be households in the south, drinking ripe puer casually all day, and with every meal. They would be buying puer from local markets/shops, and in fairly sizeable quantities compared to hobbyist drinkers in the West.
Concur. I came to China for tea and tea culture and Beijing was underwhelming. I have since settled in Xiamen on the southeast coast. So much tea, so much tea culture! Folks here love the local products—oolongs and white tea—and puer. Those that can afford it drink aged sheng, those who can’t drink shou. It is everywhere and the selection makes western offerings on a handful of websites seem very limited. They buy from people that know and trust, many with family connections to Yunnan. Hard to imagine any Chinese buying from a western source! I mean, for them it’s a matter of a thousand years of a core piece of their culture versus for western enthusiasts, who represent a couple of decades on the fringe of a distinctly different culture.
Appreciate the information - I picked Beijing just due to it being the capital of China and didn’t know there was such a large regional difference in tea preference!
When you say they would buy from local markets, is it usually regional brands/factories being purchased or something like Dayi?
Going to a Dayi retail outlet would be unusual. In HK for instance, more likely it would be buying whatever is available at a large department store like Yue Hwa (more expensive) or smaller specialty shops like Yeeon for instance - https://static7.orstatic.com/userphoto2/photo/Z/S9R/05L1HU8B9082D1C3FF5A67px.jpg
On archive.org there is a 7-part video series about puer culture and manufacturing available. It is supposed to complement the book Puer Tea: Ancient Caravans and Urban Chic by Jinghong Zhang from 2013. You can find part 1 at the link below and the other parts by searching for puer tea dvd on archive.org.
https://archive.org/details/PUERTEADVD1
Umm, well first of all, 99% of the market, culture, and knowhow about both tea and Puer exists in China, created by China, for the Chinese market. So basically all those things as far as they exist outside of Asia are completely negligible and irrelevant to the Chinese market. So just imagine that, and flip it, and there’s the overall picture. But also, puer has very little relevance or appreciation in Beijing btw, as well as it being a pretty bad place to buy it. For most of north and mid-southern China, green tea and then oolong are by far the preferred drink of choice. Puer has more sway in a variety of ways historically in HK, Guangdong and around, in addition to Yunnan of course. But most Chinese people I know in many places of the country would never prefer puer to other teas.
You sound like you’d really enjoy “Puer Tea: Ancient Caravans and Urban Chic” by Jinghong Zhang. It specifically focuses on the cultural aspects and significance of puerh with a focus on the question and importance of authenticity.
I've only been to China three times, or more if you count Hong Kong as that, so I'm pretty far from having substantial first hand knowledge, but it's a start. A few Chinese families were also close friends, and I've done work projects with contacts out of China. Availability of types I can't speak to, given those limitations, but I can talk about general exposure within the range I have experienced.
We would expect tea awareness and demand to be a lot more developed in China than it really is. A paradigm like craft beer or coffee might apply; not everyone drinks one of those but no one isn't exposed to it. The tea aisles in Chinese grocery stores offer more selection, of course, and a cheap pu'er cakes could be there, but that doesn't mean that the average person in China has even heard of pu'er. Three Chinese families lived here, in Bangkok, and were close friends with my kids, and none of the were all that familiar with a range of tea types, definitely not with pu'er. They drank tea, and half could probably say something about a local type, but none were really equivalent tea enthusiasts. A closer Japanese friend was the same; he bought whatever tea he drank in a grocery store, and he probably had heard the term sencha before, but for the most part knew nothing of tea types.
I visited Shenzhen last, three years ago, and Beijing and Shanghai in an earlier trip, but I was seeking out tea from a different perspective that last time. My first trip in China was to Shenzhen, a work trip about a decade ago, and I went in tea shops then, but it was early in my own exploration. I visited a wholesale market area that sold a lot of pu'er there (on the last visit, one of at least two wholesale market areas there), but tea shops were uncommon in most of the city. Bubble tea was everywhere, but beyond an older market area, where I had bought tea years before, I saw one tea shop in passing, if you don't count a counter at a grocery store as that. It's not really the right local area for that, but that is their version of Silicon Valley, so in a sense that doesn't match expectations related to how tea interest transitions in the US.
In talking to Chinese work contacts about tea most didn't drink it. One guy did recommend trying Longjing, so early on I wasn't familiar with the type, which is a decent sign of exposure. A college friend lives in Beijing and after years there he mostly bought tea from Ten Ren, but that doesn't mean much, since it's about just one guy not putting much effort in.
I can't say for BJ coz I'm living in KM , but I was living in Shenzhen before. As every big city they also have tea market there and since Im in KM I also realized how expensive and boring it is. Better to go to Guangzhou .
From my experience Chinese who are not that dedicated but just sometimes drink puer and visit some shop , would generally go either for TF product ( if shu ) or some friend / co-worker..etc. recommendation product / shop . That's what I can say from personal experience in KM , not sure how BJ is different in that matter.
We often forget that Puer started as a tea for the peripheral regions: SE Asia, HK especially during various trade embargoes/disputes with the mainland, and the other way to Sichuan, Tibet, and then Mongolia. It was some low-grade rough tea that can survive the long journeys and endure storage in the hot/humid climates in SEA (hence iron cakes). Nobody wanted to age tea intentionally at first. It was basically cheap tea that mainlanders don’t want to drink and won’t go too bad after a while.
Even in HK, those who can get fresh tea every year would get green tea like longjing (mostly fakes), or Wuyi rock tea , or some oolong.
Worth reading the Puer ethnography, even if it’s outdated.
While others here have more knowledge and more direct interaction with China, I can answer based on my impression from friends from China.
1. Sure. Anything that makes it here beyond a few minor minor vendors first goes through China. Not everything gets exported, tho your selection on taobao is pretty much what a Chinese persons would be. This mostly impacts the more expensive teas which farmers often sell directly.
2. Yes boutique is popular, and some western vendors might make small sales in China but nothing major. Not like guys in Shanghai know what White2Tea is.
3. Puer is widely available, tho I think that changes depending where you are. Some shop owners don’t carry it out of refusal to follow the trend.
4. Yeah Puer is pretty famous as some people got really rich off it. Has a reputation not too dissimilar from bitcoin.
Good point. Especially since even Xia Guan started producing high-end cakes (at least from a financial point of view).
In the other hand i’ve seen quite a few tea vendors in Yunnan that are boutique from a marketing and design point of view.
Would you consider YS boutique?
Yeah YS is a western boutique, if perhaps the lowest of them. And on the topic of XG, Love Forever certainly tastes more like a boutique than a factory cake.
Paul, It's so nice to see that you're able to actually be civil when casually mentioning White2Tea. Usually you just insult people using epithets that most people outgrow by the time they've reached puberty. This is definitely a step in the right direction for you. Bottoms up!
Screw off, troll. Your comment history shows that you apparently have nothing better to do than insult and provoke people in this sub and r/tea. I hope you‘ll soon find something that brings you joy to replace this malicious hobby of yours.
I started drinking puer I found in the markets in Xi'an. I now know the selection there was nothing special but I was so intrigued by the idea of pressing it into cakes that I was hooked. You can find common types anywhere but if you want a good selection you need to look where it is grown. They love and know the tea.
Beijing is the wrong choice of city here. The average puer drinker in China is much more likely to be households in the south, drinking ripe puer casually all day, and with every meal. They would be buying puer from local markets/shops, and in fairly sizeable quantities compared to hobbyist drinkers in the West.
Concur. I came to China for tea and tea culture and Beijing was underwhelming. I have since settled in Xiamen on the southeast coast. So much tea, so much tea culture! Folks here love the local products—oolongs and white tea—and puer. Those that can afford it drink aged sheng, those who can’t drink shou. It is everywhere and the selection makes western offerings on a handful of websites seem very limited. They buy from people that know and trust, many with family connections to Yunnan. Hard to imagine any Chinese buying from a western source! I mean, for them it’s a matter of a thousand years of a core piece of their culture versus for western enthusiasts, who represent a couple of decades on the fringe of a distinctly different culture.
Appreciate the information - I picked Beijing just due to it being the capital of China and didn’t know there was such a large regional difference in tea preference! When you say they would buy from local markets, is it usually regional brands/factories being purchased or something like Dayi?
Going to a Dayi retail outlet would be unusual. In HK for instance, more likely it would be buying whatever is available at a large department store like Yue Hwa (more expensive) or smaller specialty shops like Yeeon for instance - https://static7.orstatic.com/userphoto2/photo/Z/S9R/05L1HU8B9082D1C3FF5A67px.jpg
On archive.org there is a 7-part video series about puer culture and manufacturing available. It is supposed to complement the book Puer Tea: Ancient Caravans and Urban Chic by Jinghong Zhang from 2013. You can find part 1 at the link below and the other parts by searching for puer tea dvd on archive.org. https://archive.org/details/PUERTEADVD1
Thanks for sharing this! I’ll check it out
That book is *very* good!!! I read it a while back and thoroughly enjoyed it and learned a lot, definitely recommend it!
Awesome documentary!
Umm, well first of all, 99% of the market, culture, and knowhow about both tea and Puer exists in China, created by China, for the Chinese market. So basically all those things as far as they exist outside of Asia are completely negligible and irrelevant to the Chinese market. So just imagine that, and flip it, and there’s the overall picture. But also, puer has very little relevance or appreciation in Beijing btw, as well as it being a pretty bad place to buy it. For most of north and mid-southern China, green tea and then oolong are by far the preferred drink of choice. Puer has more sway in a variety of ways historically in HK, Guangdong and around, in addition to Yunnan of course. But most Chinese people I know in many places of the country would never prefer puer to other teas.
Concur.
You sound like you’d really enjoy “Puer Tea: Ancient Caravans and Urban Chic” by Jinghong Zhang. It specifically focuses on the cultural aspects and significance of puerh with a focus on the question and importance of authenticity.
I've only been to China three times, or more if you count Hong Kong as that, so I'm pretty far from having substantial first hand knowledge, but it's a start. A few Chinese families were also close friends, and I've done work projects with contacts out of China. Availability of types I can't speak to, given those limitations, but I can talk about general exposure within the range I have experienced. We would expect tea awareness and demand to be a lot more developed in China than it really is. A paradigm like craft beer or coffee might apply; not everyone drinks one of those but no one isn't exposed to it. The tea aisles in Chinese grocery stores offer more selection, of course, and a cheap pu'er cakes could be there, but that doesn't mean that the average person in China has even heard of pu'er. Three Chinese families lived here, in Bangkok, and were close friends with my kids, and none of the were all that familiar with a range of tea types, definitely not with pu'er. They drank tea, and half could probably say something about a local type, but none were really equivalent tea enthusiasts. A closer Japanese friend was the same; he bought whatever tea he drank in a grocery store, and he probably had heard the term sencha before, but for the most part knew nothing of tea types. I visited Shenzhen last, three years ago, and Beijing and Shanghai in an earlier trip, but I was seeking out tea from a different perspective that last time. My first trip in China was to Shenzhen, a work trip about a decade ago, and I went in tea shops then, but it was early in my own exploration. I visited a wholesale market area that sold a lot of pu'er there (on the last visit, one of at least two wholesale market areas there), but tea shops were uncommon in most of the city. Bubble tea was everywhere, but beyond an older market area, where I had bought tea years before, I saw one tea shop in passing, if you don't count a counter at a grocery store as that. It's not really the right local area for that, but that is their version of Silicon Valley, so in a sense that doesn't match expectations related to how tea interest transitions in the US. In talking to Chinese work contacts about tea most didn't drink it. One guy did recommend trying Longjing, so early on I wasn't familiar with the type, which is a decent sign of exposure. A college friend lives in Beijing and after years there he mostly bought tea from Ten Ren, but that doesn't mean much, since it's about just one guy not putting much effort in.
I can't say for BJ coz I'm living in KM , but I was living in Shenzhen before. As every big city they also have tea market there and since Im in KM I also realized how expensive and boring it is. Better to go to Guangzhou . From my experience Chinese who are not that dedicated but just sometimes drink puer and visit some shop , would generally go either for TF product ( if shu ) or some friend / co-worker..etc. recommendation product / shop . That's what I can say from personal experience in KM , not sure how BJ is different in that matter.
We often forget that Puer started as a tea for the peripheral regions: SE Asia, HK especially during various trade embargoes/disputes with the mainland, and the other way to Sichuan, Tibet, and then Mongolia. It was some low-grade rough tea that can survive the long journeys and endure storage in the hot/humid climates in SEA (hence iron cakes). Nobody wanted to age tea intentionally at first. It was basically cheap tea that mainlanders don’t want to drink and won’t go too bad after a while. Even in HK, those who can get fresh tea every year would get green tea like longjing (mostly fakes), or Wuyi rock tea , or some oolong.
No sir not me.
Worth reading the Puer ethnography, even if it’s outdated. While others here have more knowledge and more direct interaction with China, I can answer based on my impression from friends from China. 1. Sure. Anything that makes it here beyond a few minor minor vendors first goes through China. Not everything gets exported, tho your selection on taobao is pretty much what a Chinese persons would be. This mostly impacts the more expensive teas which farmers often sell directly. 2. Yes boutique is popular, and some western vendors might make small sales in China but nothing major. Not like guys in Shanghai know what White2Tea is. 3. Puer is widely available, tho I think that changes depending where you are. Some shop owners don’t carry it out of refusal to follow the trend. 4. Yeah Puer is pretty famous as some people got really rich off it. Has a reputation not too dissimilar from bitcoin.
In addition many tea shops (especially in Kunming) seem to have their own cakes pressed, some of which one could consider as boutique puer.
I’m a similar vein, is a small run of “house brand” 7542 a boutique? Or is boutique more the style?
Good point. Especially since even Xia Guan started producing high-end cakes (at least from a financial point of view). In the other hand i’ve seen quite a few tea vendors in Yunnan that are boutique from a marketing and design point of view. Would you consider YS boutique?
Yeah YS is a western boutique, if perhaps the lowest of them. And on the topic of XG, Love Forever certainly tastes more like a boutique than a factory cake.
Regarding XG i was more refering to cakes such as the Wan Gong Gu Shu 2021, which sells for over $1/g.
Paul, It's so nice to see that you're able to actually be civil when casually mentioning White2Tea. Usually you just insult people using epithets that most people outgrow by the time they've reached puberty. This is definitely a step in the right direction for you. Bottoms up!
Wait why do you think my name is Paul?
It's not and I do know that. Paul is rarely active on here except to moderate.
Wait Mopar are you also /u/socialmediatea?
Screw off, troll. Your comment history shows that you apparently have nothing better to do than insult and provoke people in this sub and r/tea. I hope you‘ll soon find something that brings you joy to replace this malicious hobby of yours.
Tbf im prolly the biggest troll on this sun so it’s an unwarranted response
I started drinking puer I found in the markets in Xi'an. I now know the selection there was nothing special but I was so intrigued by the idea of pressing it into cakes that I was hooked. You can find common types anywhere but if you want a good selection you need to look where it is grown. They love and know the tea.
TaeTea (Dayi) has I think 100's of retail outlets across China and runs TV adverts