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Looks like the online shop is a joint venture with a tea house in Malaysia and a tea house in Australia. They have quite a few really nice looking aged tea offerings that you wouldn't find from other western vendors, higher end teapots, but everything is of coursed priced accordingly. They don't really do sample sizes, and with some of the prices being quite high its tempting but I'm also a bit reluctant to dive in. Anyone given anything a try from them? Experiences?

Chanting Pines

On the topic, I'd like to hear experiences with their yixing pots. They claim that their zini teapots are non muting, which is hard to believe considering the consensus of how zini acts.

Consensus is one, reality maybe something else

There are lots of Zini out there, in different clay compositions and firings, antique, vintage and new. I wouldn’t dare to pass a general judgement on their behaviour... I’ve had some which are what one might call absorbing, some very little, some made tea dull, some enhanced it to new heights. Some worked with green, some with roasted, see the picture emerging?

Concerning Chanting pines, I do like their look from a design point of view, I don’t like their marketing talk. Their antiques are frankly quite overpriced and conveniently dated back a bit, whereas one can’t really be sure wether they are Qing or Early ROC. Late Qing/early ROC is usually the honest way to mark them. Also doubt that those cups are Ming, at least one can’t be that sure... but for sure it sells better.

They are acting as western facing reseler for the Malaysian boutique http://chazhiji.my/ The prices reflect that.
I think Chazhiji shares or shared some common connections also with Essence of Tea and also with Global Tea Hut, so there might be some similarity or overlap (e.g. yixing pots form Zhou Qi Kun and Chen Ju Fang studio, yancha from Huang family, etc.).
I haven't ordered from them, but i've been intrigued.

well they seem to have added even more aged liu bao but its both out of my price point and uhhh... yeah. I don't know how much of all of this is packaging or provenance... for example a 70's si jin quan would be really nice to try and it seems like it is on the more reasonable price side of their offerings for 100g/$265 and the price on the 2000 si jin quan seems fair. but take the 80s Vive they are selling for 125g/$1700! yes its in a nice jar and box, but EoT has it for $250. I recall Lao maybe had this in stock as well very briefly but can't remember or the price, but I do recall I tried the 90s Vive for something like 10g for a few euros. All of EoT's 50s liu baos are between 1000-1300/100g, and CP's is $2700/125g. Yes not necessarily the same batches, but still... seeing things like that makes me as a buyer highly suspicious of the value of their "lower" prices teas that are closer to my budget.

Have to agree on being very skeptical of this shop.
Their yixings, which I am mostly interested in, seem to be randomly priced. A pot that looks just as good from an "apprentice" costs way less than from "chen ju fang". Of course, you pay for the name but how can you be sure that you're not just getting one of those apprentice teapots but priced way higher?
Their antique wares are also, as mentioned here before, overpriced beyond belief. IIRC a qing/roc zini teapot should only cost 500-1000 usd, but they sell for 2000-3000 usd. Not sure though so don't take that at face value.

@carogust Zini from Qing Roc can sell at 2000-3000, but not the kind of quality they are selling...

Many of their antique pots seem a bit too wonky and inelegant for those kind of prices.

Also, who are the buyers willing to spend $7,000-28,000 on a teapot over the web?

Chadrinkincat wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 27, 2020 8:56 am

Many of their antique pots seem a bit too wonky and inelegant for those kind of prices.

Also, who are the buyers willing to spend $7,000-28,000 on a teapot over the web?

Exactly! I don’t know who they think their target audience is??? For that much money I want to hold it in hands and see every detail.

Bok wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 27, 2020 9:15 am

For that much money I want to hold it in hands and see every detail.

For that much money, I think I would rather keep it out of my hands at all costs, for fear of breaking it, or starting to convince myself I might actually want to buy it.

Bok wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 27, 2020 9:15 am

Chadrinkincat wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 27, 2020 8:56 am

Many of their antique pots seem a bit too wonky and inelegant for those kind of prices.

Also, who are the buyers willing to spend $7,000-28,000 on a teapot over the web?

Exactly! I don’t know who they think their target audience is??? For that much money I want to hold it in hands and see every detail.

I also don't understand this... I mean sometimes you want to have what might be considered prestige items up for "sale", but this type of thing is just silly. I get that to some degree things are relative- a few hundred in the general market scheme for say Puerh is nothing, and if you have a reliable source and its a known cake you are getting you have a good idea what you are getting into. But paying thousands of dollars for something you have never seen/touch/tasted seems ludicrous to me. For example with EoT they have some rather pricey rare offerings, but you can buy samples too which I really appreciate - either for making a big purchase decision or just having the opportunity to try something that is otherwise totally inaccessible to you.

If I have thousands of dollars on hand for a single tea related purchase why would I order something online blind. For that money I could fly over to China or Malaysia and spend time visiting shops/collectors, doing tasting, and source something myself at that price - all while having an amazing time doing it.

People who buy premium tea or teaware do for certain not buy online. It would be foolish to do otherwise. Some have trusted brokers who help them source and minimise the risk.

All of that is way above shops like chanting pines and the likes... the only example of a trustworthy premium tea ware shop I know is Zishaart Gallery (online and in English).

Bok wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 28, 2020 4:27 am

People who buy premium tea or teaware do for certain not buy online. It would be foolish to do otherwise. Some have trusted brokers who help them source and minimise the risk.

@Bok, as an online seller of premium tea, I must disagree. Also, as regards tea ware www.mudandleaves.com has some very high quality modern yixing and porcelain.

Tillerman wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 02, 2020 9:54 pm

Bok, as an online seller of premium tea, I must disagree. Also, as regards tea ware www.mudandleaves.com has some very high quality modern yixing and porcelain.

I didn’t put that clearly, what I was referring to is premium antique teaware.

In regards to tea, it is certainly the case for premium segment of Chinese teas, those are simply not available online.

While Taiwanese high quality teas are in general cheaper than the Chinese ones of comparable quality, the premium segment is also excruciatingly expensive and I haven’t seen the equivalent of the prices I see for those in Taiwan in a Western shop(adding a percentage for export etc.).

We’re talking about the likes of Oriental beauty that can cost 1000+ USD Taiwan retail.

Adding to it, just recently I came across one of the best Dongding I have ever tasted (by the way not much in common with ordinary Dongding), it was selling at the most expensive price I have ever heard for category(competition winners excluded) at 100USD for one liang (37.5g). Imagine translating that into an offer sold abroad... no one will buy that blindly – or at all.