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First one seems to be Lao Man Er , last one obviously CNNP... not sure which ones thoug; there's a couple there i'd swear i saw 'em somewhere .

Anybody willing to take a guess ?

The last one is readily available from JD.com/Taobao etc. at around CNY400 per cake. (I assume it's this 2012 tea, unless they used the same wrapper for a number of years.)

The others... Do you have better (bigger) images? Having a hard time deciphering most of the strokes of the characters, except the huge ones. Taking the info at face value (always a dangerous proposition): First one, like you say, is a Lao Man E; second one Laobanzhang (500 year old trees); third one a pre-Qingming (yuck!) "Arbor King"; fourth one Da Xue Shan; fifth one a gushu from "Mangnuo" (first time I hear of this village, seems to be in Lincang, mentioned in brief here). All of them are sheng.

Are these teas you are considering buying?

Balthazar wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 07, 2021 1:46 pm

The last one is readily available from JD.com/Taobao etc. at around CNY400 per cake. (I assume it's this 2012 tea, unless they used the same wrapper for a number of years.)

The others... Do you have better (bigger) images? Having a hard time deciphering most of the strokes of the characters, except the huge ones. Taking the info at face value (always a dangerous proposition): First one, like you say, is a Lao Man E; second one Laobanzhang (500 year old trees); third one a pre-Qingming (yuck!) "Arbor King"; fourth one Da Xue Shan; fifth one a gushu from "Mangnuo" (first time I hear of this village, seems to be in Lincang, mentioned in brief here). All of them are sheng.

Are these teas you are considering buying?

Thanks a lot .

Unfortunately those are the only pics i have.

It's one of those "look at this" situations where one is supposed to feel tempted to ask prices - which i did - ... although based on my experience i'm expecting asking prices around 100+ per cake and most of those wrappers have an ominous aliexpress look and while i'm used to pay western prices ... for such range i'd rather pay VAT on Zheng Si Long cakes or go with any other alternative within the EU.

Still don't know prices yet but already have been warned that Lao Mane Er is both "exceptional" & expensive so probably won't buy anything in the end.

That fifth cake with the "flame" like symbol has something about it i'd swear i saw it somewhere but can't point my finger to it ... in the end this will be probably more exciting as a game than a potential purchase.

Gotcha

Do share your experience with the teas, if you end up taking the plunge.

Balthazar wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 08, 2021 1:16 pm

Gotcha

Do share your experience with the teas, if you end up taking the plunge.

Will do... and in fact i'd like to, then again... i received tea offerings from this same source before ( although back then it was 1996 Ying Kee sheng, some 2003 loose sheng? and some more recent productions ) and based on those prices i'm guessing it'll go around those prices which would be well out of their range IMO ( 90s sheng makes sense, '03 Laos production... maybe, maybe not ... , for recent factory cakes i'm quite reluctant unless i have some verified info that would justify the effort ).

For random factory cakes these days looks like cheap-bet-hunting on Aliexpress could be more efficient, r/tea mod EarnestWilde have been at it for quite some time and even shared some finds here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/teabargain/

and it's somebody i certainly trust, not a random internet character.

If I was going to play the pu-lottery on any of the Alibaba Group platforms, I'd pick Taobao/Tmall over Aliexpress in a heartbeat (even more so for factory stuff!). The mentioned JD.com is another option. With agent fees and shipping much more reasonable than before I have a hard time understanding why people go to Aliexpress for tea (well, beside the language barrier and the temptation of "free" shipping).

That said, interesting subreddit!

Balthazar wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 08, 2021 3:39 pm

If I was going to play the pu-lottery on any of the Alibaba Group platforms, I'd pick Taobao/Tmall over Aliexpress in a heartbeat (even more so for factory stuff!). The mentioned JD.com is another option. With agent fees and shipping much more reasonable than before I have a hard time understanding why people go to Aliexpress for tea (well, beside the language barrier and the temptation of "free" shipping).

That said, interesting subreddit!

Lack of experience along w/ desire for very small $20-50 orders are probably a major reason for someone choosing AE over TB.

I always think of AE as the bargain hunting shop for people that like buying tea from Amazon/eBay.

Balthazar wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 08, 2021 3:39 pm

If I was going to play the pu-lottery on any of the Alibaba Group platforms, I'd pick Taobao/Tmall over Aliexpress in a heartbeat (even more so for factory stuff!). The mentioned JD.com is another option. With agent fees and shipping much more reasonable than before I have a hard time understanding why people go to Aliexpress for tea (well, beside the language barrier and the temptation of "free" shipping).

That said, interesting subreddit!

can you recommend some agent please?

Balthazar wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 08, 2021 3:39 pm

If I was going to play the pu-lottery on any of the Alibaba Group platforms, I'd pick Taobao/Tmall over Aliexpress in a heartbeat (even more so for factory stuff!). The mentioned JD.com is another option. With agent fees and shipping much more reasonable than before I have a hard time understanding why people go to Aliexpress for tea (well, beside the language barrier and the temptation of "free" shipping).

Only used the latter myself once to buy a cheap electronic component while fixing an old computer, certainly never had Aliexpress in mind as a place to buy tea from ( nor Etsy for that matter ... even though there's some tea sellers there, and people seems to be happy with a few particular ones ) .

EarnestWilde was the one to bring this up, he mentioned that comparing with taobao/tmall stores and some other sources can help you find bargains there every now & then... and he is a veteran tea drinker, collector and remarkable tea-person trying to expand the knowledge through tea festivals on the US northwest ( when that was still possible of course ) so i take it there must be indeed some advantages to it Vs Taobao. Granted, those chances seem to be scarce and demand some time investment... which sometimes is part of the fun, treasure-hunting.

As for reasons:

On top of what has been mentioned on the Taobao/Aliexpress topic already i'd add an age-old reason: adding extra steps to a simple mechanism.

With Aliexpress orders people feel more "in control" ( not that much, but let's cut it there for the sake of argument ) while Taobao force you ( most people at the very least ) to add an extra step - agents - which comes with added layers of complexity and increase the percentage of potential scams ( aet message should make this even clearer, not everybody knows a reliable agent out of the blue ) .

Should be made abundantly clear such risk is very real, there's a more than significant number of scammers among these so-called agents and nowadays on the middle of WWIII even some of these agents might feel even more tempted to scam western buyers if the socioeconomic situation take a turn for the worse .

The dark side of these agents isn't exactly something recent nor mere rumours built by internet newcomers but a solid dark wall that reached considerable height over plenty years.

Full disclosure: i myself have been scammed on a TaoBao group buy one of these agents 12-13 years ago; it was the second group buy organized on some audio forums using the same agent, the first one was successful... the second one ( obviously bigger, prompted by the results with the first one ) wasn't .

Despite my personal experience i'm not one of those persons that extrapolate personal experiences ( been buying all kind of things online on an almost daily basis since '96 , mail ordering before that ... have faced all kind of situations already ) and have known way too many people that kept buying all kind of stuff from Taobao with zero issues over the years, but also more than aware there's a dangerous percentage of scammers hidden among agents and it's fair to mention it. Granted, things have improved A LOT ( worth the capitalization ) over the years and nowadays it's my understanding that it's much much much safer than 10+ years ago.

Long story short: Taobao still drags a dark side to its brand name and adds extra steps not to mention the additional middle man; just with these few variables in mind and the fact that the vast majority of consumers will always be KISS advocates we shouldn't be really that surprised.

That said, interesting subreddit!

Still very recent. Maybe it'll grow up to be something truly interesting or go zombie at some point.

Funny enough the ochitea spammer is already there with their multi-account legion and casual remarks. Hope they don't target Teaforum, this is the most aggressive tea-spammer i've seen since Naturalpuerh .

@Maerskian: Seems to me that most of the "positives" of Aliexpress are moot points. The only one I really agree with is that it makes the Western buyer "feel more in control". This is an apt choice of words, as it's really just a feeling (that often has little or no root in reality). Loads of Aliexpress vendors are buying their stuff from TB/TMall vendors (often wholesalers), in which case you're only adding another layer of "middlemen" to the already long string of beads between yourself and the producer. (I.e., the "Aliexpress-vendor-as-agent-with-limited-selection" situation.)

Like you say, it's an issue of trust.

Beyond providing a temporary storage, taking some photos, repacking items and responding to inquiries, a Taobao-agent does very little work (the whole ordering process is automated at the big agent companies). He or she still makes a decent buck through agent fees and other "tricks" such as currency exchange rates with an added margin and often unnecessary packaging options ("extra padding, + $3" - etc).

Aliexpress vendors, on the other hand, must make a profit through the items they sell. So the ones that sell tea at make-believe prices (even before you factor in that shipping costs has been baked into the price) must either make no money at all (or actually incur losses) or be selling fakes.

So it seems to me like the grand prize of the Aliexpress lottery is finding something that is cheap, fake but still kind of (or even very) nice. Point in case being this reccomendation from "EarnestWilde".

You have no guarantee that a Taobao agent is not going to scam you, but you can almost be certain that an Aliexpress vendor selling factory cakes at below market value is. That's the main difference, imo.

Taobao contains both the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. While there's lots of the bad and the ugly, it's not hard to avoid fakes (if you want to be sure, use a Tmall flagship store, otherwise price is always the best indicator). But it can still be a real lottery in terms of storage.

That being said, I don't think Taobao/Tmall is a very good place to buy puer anymore. This is a big reason why. These days I pretty much only use it for heicha that is hard to find elsewhere.

aet wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 09, 2021 4:54 am

can you recommend some agent please?

I've been satisfied with Superbuy and Taobao FOCUS. Superbuy would be my first choice. Do remember to look carefully at the photos of the items and have them discard any of the unwanted freebies the Taobao vendor threw in (I didn't look carefully one time, when the vendor had a "buy any tea and get a free electrical kettle" offer .. )

I probably steered the topic off the course, but just one thing would like to add. Many times happened to me that tea brand would offer me a cake / brick for re-sell with words ...check TB , we sell it there for 3x higher price, so you have a space for some $$.
Which means that TB is not the cheap place to buy. It is an illusion. The low prices makes it look like that , because tons of rubbish there as well.
I know quite few vendors who do TB and they all have a certain "class" of tea which makes sense to sell it there. They all say " it is a competitive place to sell , the competition is not about the quality but the price ".
You would think " 1000CNY cake must be decent " ....for this Chinese have a saying " one time buy" ...which basically reflects concept - if you go for something, go for big one. Means vendor doesn't expect you to come back for next buy anyway, so at least gets a big one in 1st sell.

I agree with complexity of buying from TB or other CN websites. Translator can help a bit , but certain things are not that obvious..like fake reviews , fake storage location claim, location of tea it self , tea trees , harvest ( common claim 1st spring harvest ....there is literally nothing you can hang on and they don't sell samples, so it leads you to only TF teas and only the new ones coz old ones are also fakes a lot.

These days buying TF new teas is just waste of the money for somebody's ( the TF owner ) new SUV or big running costs of the company ( in better case ) . The margins on the cake might be up to 10x ( depends what concept they run ) to keep investors , re-sellers happy...and such. I mean think of it like any other big factory - Coca Cola , Apple..etc. Dayi is like 90% marketing 10% actual value of what is inside of wrapper.The campaigns / adverts they are running here in China ( now trying to expand to abroad ) are just enormous ( $$$$$$ ) and that's reflected in the product margin.
TF makes products for wholesalers primary so in minimum there has to be a space ( $ cut / reserve ) for middle segments and even on their branded websites they have to keep high retail prices ( otherwise they wouldn't get any wholesale buyer who are retailers ) ...it is just what it is.


Anyway, sorry for diverting the topic.....

Sorry to continue off topic here (maybe worth splitting this discussion?) but for me the thing with Taobao has always been translation and the hassle of figuring all of it out. Unless I have been totally using it wrong, the agent sites I have tried never translate well and I can't find what I'm looking for. Aliexpress is just easier for me, and I guess I'm already familiar using it to buy electronic components. That said there is only one, maybe two sellers, I would buy from on there, and that is because I have bought direct from them before or on another platform, they just shifted to Aliexpress as other sites like ebay became too much of a hassle or had too high of seller fees. In any case though I still mostly just buy direct from them rather than through Aliexpress. So, for me it isn't so much the platform in this case but knowing the seller more than anything else. But also by not really buying Puerh I probably side step a lot of the hassle around fakes and things that way, and also knowing better than to go bargain hunting.

aet wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 10, 2021 9:17 am

Which means that TB is not the cheap place to buy. It is an illusion.

Whether or not a given TB store (or any other store for that matter) is "cheap" depends on the market you have access to. Cheap/expensive should be considered relative concepts, not absolutes, in this context.

If you can go directly to the factory owner and buy the cakes from him/her with a smaller markup, then yeah, buying from a TB store will obviously be more expensive. But for 99% of consumers, that's not an option. So if the TB shop charges a 5x markup but all alternative sources you have access to charge a 15x markup, you're still getting a better deal by going with the TB shop.

Balthazar wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 10, 2021 10:51 am

aet wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 10, 2021 9:17 am

Which means that TB is not the cheap place to buy. It is an illusion.

Whether or not a given TB store (or any other store for that matter) is "cheap" depends on the market you have access to. Cheap/expensive should be considered relative concepts, not absolutes, in this context.

If you can go directly to the factory owner and buy the cakes from him/her with a smaller markup, then yeah, buying from a TB store will obviously be more expensive. But for 99% of consumers, that's not an option. So if the TB shop charges a 5x markup but all alternative sources you have access to charge a 15x markup, you're still getting a better deal by going with the TB shop.

Agreed completely.

wave_code wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 10, 2021 10:48 am

Sorry to continue off topic here (maybe worth splitting this discussion?) but for me the thing with Taobao has always been translation and the hassle of figuring all of it out. Unless I have been totally using it wrong, the agent sites I have tried never translate well and I can't find what I'm looking for. Aliexpress is just easier for me, and I guess I'm already familiar using it to buy electronic components. That said there is only one, maybe two sellers, I would buy from on there, and that is because I have bought direct from them before or on another platform, they just shifted to Aliexpress as other sites like ebay became too much of a hassle or had too high of seller fees. In any case though I still mostly just buy direct from them rather than through Aliexpress. So, for me it isn't so much the platform in this case but knowing the seller more than anything else. But also by not really buying Puerh I probably side step a lot of the hassle around fakes and things that way, and also knowing better than to go bargain hunting.

Not having access to translation can be an issue, absolutely. I guess I'm lucky that I can read Chinese - it helps in reviewing the comments and the like.