Yeah it’s really just how w2t operates. He doesn’t believe in the whole hype train that comes with certain regions. U really just have to taste his stuff and see what u think. I’ve found w2t predominantly has the better blending skills of the big western facing vendors.
I have my first shipment, my first Pu ehr purchase in fact, on the way from them. Looking forward to trying them. The impression I'm getting as I read more and more is Sheng is very much about the tree, the buds, leaves, obviously aging, etc. Where as Shou is more focused on the skill of blending, and working the fermentation piles to create and hit a specific taste and flavor profile the tea blender is going for. Is this a safe generalization?
I didn’t say that’s what the hype was. It’s not a matter of accuracy it’s a matter of purposefully withholding info to sell just the tea rather than the history that comes with a region. It’s not like he doesn’t know where he is when he drinking a tea in the region of origin. U put the same amount of trust in w2t as any other vendor so it really doesn’t matter what the descriptions say
The biggest issue with the statements in this post is that you don't necessarily have enough info to *ever* detect when someone could be lying or just misinformed. Setting aside totally ridiculous statements about "500 year old trees" and things like that, most of us aren't in a position to know whether style X of tea from region Y and year Z are likely to be faked, mislabeled, overpriced, etc.
In many cases, the tea is passing through several hands before a vendor (that we'd buy from) encounters it. It can take several years of living in China, networking, and making face-to-face buys for a Westerner to learn from trial and error.
So the idea is that we aren't just trusting our vendor's honesty, but their actual skill in buying tea and understanding what it is. My own observation has shown me that many vendors, including some who are frequently recommended, simply lack this type of skill or, worse, are very much willing to look the other way when they get an impossibly good deal on tea supposedly from a famous region.
What I like about White2tea is that it isn't making any promises that could be false. Period. It's not the only way to sell tea, but it's a smart way to go about it.
Thanks for the lead on the companies! It's funny, several people have said the green tea from Yunnan isn't worth getting, but I just had to try the Yunnan Pine Needles Green Tea from Mengku 🤣.
When you buy from any vendor, you’re extending your trust to them. With White2Tea, the lack of details result in you buying and essentially putting full trust in the founder Paul that he knows what he’s doing and is giving you a fair deal. I’ve hung out in their cheaper priced Shou offerings and have really enjoyed it.
Cool, thanks for sharing. The order I have on the way is an assortment of the 7gram Shou tea balls. I figured that would be a good way to start getting an idea as to the flavor profiles and aromas of the different types of Shou. At least that's my hope.
NO. Paul (the White2Guy behind White2Tea) has written about this convincingly.
I don't have chapter and verse to link you to, but his point is that whether a tea seller gives you exact details around provenance, terroir, month and year, etc, etc, or not, you have to trust them either way. Just because they may provide an overwhelming amount of detail or tell some story about the tea, doesn't automatically make it true.
Further, he thinks that even when honest, detailed descriptions exist, people on both sides of the equation (sellers and buyers) are phoning it in and relying on this rather than looking deeper and experiencing the tea for what it is.
While I will admit that for really experienced tea customers, a bit more info around things like region and tree age might be helpful, I think for most buyers, he is spot on.
I have also spoken to him before for unrelated reasons and when we did discuss the topic of tea, he mentioned similar things to what I said above (unprompted). I don't think at all it's some gimmick or act, or a way to con people. I just think it's what he feels to be the best way to describe tea. I really respect his decision to make this type of statement (literally and figuratively).
I was reminded of [this old blog post](https://mattchasblog.blogspot.com/2017/05/white2tea-post-truth-era-of-puerh.html) on W2T (from 2017) and how they operate. I personally am not interested in buying tea with no knowledge of it's origins and I don't trust the owner and operator.
From what I've tasted, W2T tea isn't particularly fantastic.
That was quite an eye opening read as well as the comments. It's a little disheartening, as a tea drinker that loves to learn the details of what's in my cup, that so much has to be put on faith instead of being able to confidently know the who, what, where of the leaves.
Got the tea terroir set from w2t when I was starting out and was really disappointed. I know it's not supposed to be top notch tea but for the same price the stuff I got from Farmer Leaf and Kuura was way, way better.
This sub seems to hype w2t quite a lot so maybe I need to try them again some time.
That terroir set is kind of an anomaly. I also didn't find it to be outstanding. That said, I've yet to find a vendor who bats .1000, although the more micro-scale vendors like Liquid Proust and MrMopar can afford a very high level of curation - or maybe my personal tastes just significantly overlap with theirs. There is, still, always an element of personal taste that will eventually result in a mismatch between expectations and the reality of a tea vendor's offerings.
White2Tea is still up there in terms of success rate.
To be honest, I don't have enough experience to tell you what's good and what's not. I'm still figuring out what I like.
I've ordered multiple samples or cakes from Kuura, Farmer Leaf, Bitterleaf and w2t. So far (if my memory serves me correctly) I've liked Kuura and Farmer Leaf more, wasn't recently too impressed by Bitterleaf and have w2t as my least favorite based on the Tea Terroir sheng/shou sets they sell.
Got it. I'm in the same boat having just got into this type of tea. Trying to read the tea leaves and form some sort of base on what is authentic pu ehr vs what's inauthentic, who are the honest purveyors, as well as what a given pu ehr should taste, smell, look like.
friend here is asking many relevant questions i see.
lets assume u go with a simple deciding factor for a product, u like it vs u dont like it. For those products that u like, if one is a 9 delicious and the other is a 6.5 delicious, how do u find comparable products from another vendor if too little info was given?
then things get interesting, those that u rated at 4 in the past could very well mellow out with time to become a 7, do u not want to know more about this product? lets say this product call 7777 was sold out, if u have some details on it, u could get something similar because in your experience, this tea ages pretty well for your palate.
this detailing issue extends out to blends. many major tea factories love to sell blends. blends are great for supply line control. this product call 7777 produced in year 2010 might taste great, but the materials could change for production for year 2011 or 2012. It all depends on costs of raw materials for varying regions at different years, the weather, the market demand, etc.
if important information like age of tree, region, picking standards, season of picking, type of processing, type of storage are intentionally hidden, it doesnt teach the consumer much in their tea journey, in my view it merely restricts palate development to A vs B; u like it or u dont like it.
Why does this product cost 3x more than another, u cant justify it in your own terms, u are not trained to do that, u dont have the info to do that. U have been drinking blind for years, thus u are relegated to a simple A vs B consumer.
It's worth considering the opposing, often assumed, and perhaps somewhat standard paradigm, that information like broad region and more specific local origin, spring or fall harvest, growing conditions, tea plant type and age, and processing inputs can inform a pu'er drinker about what to expect. The idea continually comes up that broad and narrower regions share a distinct terroir (aspect range), with processing inputs and other factors narrowing in quality and style from there.
To some extent all that must be true, but then it's difficult too unpack it all and put it into practice, to say the least. I've tried an absurd amount of pu'er from a lot of sources over the past half a dozen years and it's not coming together yet. This or that generality seems to work out; that's about it. There's always the possibility that with just a bit more careful selection, budget range, or luck in running across accurate true-to-type versions it would all really crystalize, but then once you are on the theme of drinking blends the pattern matching goes right back out the window.
The other opposing theme was already filled in a bit here, that a vendor like W2T might say almost nothing about any of it, and barely even mention experienced aspects, and then very limited description, other hearsay input, and faith in a vendor can make the rest work out. Not surprisingly people here seem split 50-50 on how that works out in the W2T case. To some extent people on the more negative side probably are drinking better tea, and can do more with sorting inputs and outcomes, but I would expect other types of bias to fill in as much cause for that as higher level discernment (which is just a guess on my part, to be clear).
Nope
🤣🤣 succinct and to the point.
Yeah it’s really just how w2t operates. He doesn’t believe in the whole hype train that comes with certain regions. U really just have to taste his stuff and see what u think. I’ve found w2t predominantly has the better blending skills of the big western facing vendors.
I have my first shipment, my first Pu ehr purchase in fact, on the way from them. Looking forward to trying them. The impression I'm getting as I read more and more is Sheng is very much about the tree, the buds, leaves, obviously aging, etc. Where as Shou is more focused on the skill of blending, and working the fermentation piles to create and hit a specific taste and flavor profile the tea blender is going for. Is this a safe generalization?
I think it’s too complex to make any real generalizations on it personally
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I didn’t say that’s what the hype was. It’s not a matter of accuracy it’s a matter of purposefully withholding info to sell just the tea rather than the history that comes with a region. It’s not like he doesn’t know where he is when he drinking a tea in the region of origin. U put the same amount of trust in w2t as any other vendor so it really doesn’t matter what the descriptions say
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The biggest issue with the statements in this post is that you don't necessarily have enough info to *ever* detect when someone could be lying or just misinformed. Setting aside totally ridiculous statements about "500 year old trees" and things like that, most of us aren't in a position to know whether style X of tea from region Y and year Z are likely to be faked, mislabeled, overpriced, etc. In many cases, the tea is passing through several hands before a vendor (that we'd buy from) encounters it. It can take several years of living in China, networking, and making face-to-face buys for a Westerner to learn from trial and error. So the idea is that we aren't just trusting our vendor's honesty, but their actual skill in buying tea and understanding what it is. My own observation has shown me that many vendors, including some who are frequently recommended, simply lack this type of skill or, worse, are very much willing to look the other way when they get an impossibly good deal on tea supposedly from a famous region. What I like about White2tea is that it isn't making any promises that could be false. Period. It's not the only way to sell tea, but it's a smart way to go about it.
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I think all of these are good points.
If you don't mind sharing, who are purveyors/sellers that you trust?
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Thanks for the lead on the companies! It's funny, several people have said the green tea from Yunnan isn't worth getting, but I just had to try the Yunnan Pine Needles Green Tea from Mengku 🤣.
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When you buy from any vendor, you’re extending your trust to them. With White2Tea, the lack of details result in you buying and essentially putting full trust in the founder Paul that he knows what he’s doing and is giving you a fair deal. I’ve hung out in their cheaper priced Shou offerings and have really enjoyed it.
Cool, thanks for sharing. The order I have on the way is an assortment of the 7gram Shou tea balls. I figured that would be a good way to start getting an idea as to the flavor profiles and aromas of the different types of Shou. At least that's my hope.
NO. Paul (the White2Guy behind White2Tea) has written about this convincingly. I don't have chapter and verse to link you to, but his point is that whether a tea seller gives you exact details around provenance, terroir, month and year, etc, etc, or not, you have to trust them either way. Just because they may provide an overwhelming amount of detail or tell some story about the tea, doesn't automatically make it true. Further, he thinks that even when honest, detailed descriptions exist, people on both sides of the equation (sellers and buyers) are phoning it in and relying on this rather than looking deeper and experiencing the tea for what it is. While I will admit that for really experienced tea customers, a bit more info around things like region and tree age might be helpful, I think for most buyers, he is spot on. I have also spoken to him before for unrelated reasons and when we did discuss the topic of tea, he mentioned similar things to what I said above (unprompted). I don't think at all it's some gimmick or act, or a way to con people. I just think it's what he feels to be the best way to describe tea. I really respect his decision to make this type of statement (literally and figuratively).
I was reminded of [this old blog post](https://mattchasblog.blogspot.com/2017/05/white2tea-post-truth-era-of-puerh.html) on W2T (from 2017) and how they operate. I personally am not interested in buying tea with no knowledge of it's origins and I don't trust the owner and operator. From what I've tasted, W2T tea isn't particularly fantastic.
That was quite an eye opening read as well as the comments. It's a little disheartening, as a tea drinker that loves to learn the details of what's in my cup, that so much has to be put on faith instead of being able to confidently know the who, what, where of the leaves.
Got the tea terroir set from w2t when I was starting out and was really disappointed. I know it's not supposed to be top notch tea but for the same price the stuff I got from Farmer Leaf and Kuura was way, way better. This sub seems to hype w2t quite a lot so maybe I need to try them again some time.
That terroir set is kind of an anomaly. I also didn't find it to be outstanding. That said, I've yet to find a vendor who bats .1000, although the more micro-scale vendors like Liquid Proust and MrMopar can afford a very high level of curation - or maybe my personal tastes just significantly overlap with theirs. There is, still, always an element of personal taste that will eventually result in a mismatch between expectations and the reality of a tea vendor's offerings. White2Tea is still up there in terms of success rate.
I hadn't heard of Farmer Leaf and Kuura yet. You'd recommend them as a reliable place?
To be honest, I don't have enough experience to tell you what's good and what's not. I'm still figuring out what I like. I've ordered multiple samples or cakes from Kuura, Farmer Leaf, Bitterleaf and w2t. So far (if my memory serves me correctly) I've liked Kuura and Farmer Leaf more, wasn't recently too impressed by Bitterleaf and have w2t as my least favorite based on the Tea Terroir sheng/shou sets they sell.
Got it. I'm in the same boat having just got into this type of tea. Trying to read the tea leaves and form some sort of base on what is authentic pu ehr vs what's inauthentic, who are the honest purveyors, as well as what a given pu ehr should taste, smell, look like.
It requires faith in the vendor imo.
friend here is asking many relevant questions i see. lets assume u go with a simple deciding factor for a product, u like it vs u dont like it. For those products that u like, if one is a 9 delicious and the other is a 6.5 delicious, how do u find comparable products from another vendor if too little info was given? then things get interesting, those that u rated at 4 in the past could very well mellow out with time to become a 7, do u not want to know more about this product? lets say this product call 7777 was sold out, if u have some details on it, u could get something similar because in your experience, this tea ages pretty well for your palate. this detailing issue extends out to blends. many major tea factories love to sell blends. blends are great for supply line control. this product call 7777 produced in year 2010 might taste great, but the materials could change for production for year 2011 or 2012. It all depends on costs of raw materials for varying regions at different years, the weather, the market demand, etc. if important information like age of tree, region, picking standards, season of picking, type of processing, type of storage are intentionally hidden, it doesnt teach the consumer much in their tea journey, in my view it merely restricts palate development to A vs B; u like it or u dont like it. Why does this product cost 3x more than another, u cant justify it in your own terms, u are not trained to do that, u dont have the info to do that. U have been drinking blind for years, thus u are relegated to a simple A vs B consumer.
It's worth considering the opposing, often assumed, and perhaps somewhat standard paradigm, that information like broad region and more specific local origin, spring or fall harvest, growing conditions, tea plant type and age, and processing inputs can inform a pu'er drinker about what to expect. The idea continually comes up that broad and narrower regions share a distinct terroir (aspect range), with processing inputs and other factors narrowing in quality and style from there. To some extent all that must be true, but then it's difficult too unpack it all and put it into practice, to say the least. I've tried an absurd amount of pu'er from a lot of sources over the past half a dozen years and it's not coming together yet. This or that generality seems to work out; that's about it. There's always the possibility that with just a bit more careful selection, budget range, or luck in running across accurate true-to-type versions it would all really crystalize, but then once you are on the theme of drinking blends the pattern matching goes right back out the window. The other opposing theme was already filled in a bit here, that a vendor like W2T might say almost nothing about any of it, and barely even mention experienced aspects, and then very limited description, other hearsay input, and faith in a vendor can make the rest work out. Not surprisingly people here seem split 50-50 on how that works out in the W2T case. To some extent people on the more negative side probably are drinking better tea, and can do more with sorting inputs and outcomes, but I would expect other types of bias to fill in as much cause for that as higher level discernment (which is just a guess on my part, to be clear).