Collecting "falling out of love with pu'er" stories from Blogspot

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Dresden
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Fri Sep 18, 2020 7:02 pm

klepto wrote:
Thu Sep 17, 2020 1:49 am
:cry: :broken_heart:
These stories are very sad, and yet I feel the same way. I've loved Kentucky Bourbon for a long time and every night I'd drink a nip or two and sleep like a baby. Seeking out various mash bills and looking for different profiles. I lost my love for Bourbon and picked up puerh. My liver thanks me and my doctor visits are more like me meeting an old friend and they casually tell you that you are in great health.
:heartbeat: :sparkles: :relieved:
Some of us do both :D . Just as I can't resist shincha season, I also find myself drawn to each new ECBP release.
John_B
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Tue Sep 22, 2020 2:57 am

Although some people quitting pu'er and moving on to other beverage choices would come up mention of dropping out of tea writing and tea circles could be more common. There's a life-cycle to those sorts of activities, beyond caffeine intolerance coming up in some cases. I wrote a blog post about that once, with some interesting input cited in that (interesting to me, at least):

http://anotherteablog.blogspot.com/2003 ... blogs.html

Ok, I fought it and fought it, but the blog is officially dead. It saddens me, as tea has given me much pleasure, as has this blog. Unfortunately for now my interests and hobbies have moved on to other things...

Hopefully this is temporary. Hopefully tea will once again be the source of pleasure that it was to me. And in the mean time, hopefully it will continue to be a source of pleasure for you.



https://palatabilitea.wordpress.com/

Why my particular blog dried up was not a reflection of me losing interest in tea or the online tea culture, but more of a reflection of a huge change in my life. The couple of years I wrote my blog was a unique period of time between graduating from my undergrad and moving on to my first graduate program.

When I started the blog, the Great Recession was in full swing and the only job I could manage to get was a part time receptionist position. I started writing the tea blog as a way to keep my writing chops sharp, while at the same time studying to pass the GRE. I'd fallen into a core group of live chatters on Adagio's TeaChat, and a few of them had started blogs to archive our tasting notes. We realized that a lot of other people were reading our blogs, too, which really bothered some of the guys (I was the only girl), and they stopped writing for that reason. More of us stopped for the same reason I did: our lives changed.



People dropping out of the tea interest, in addition to the writing and social contact theme, could fall along the same lines. I've really only been mostly focused on sheng pu'er for 3 years now, and on tea in general for about 8, but I could easily imagine letting the writing, discussion, and even the tea experience go. I was into tisanes for a long time, and wine at one point, and craft beer; such change is normal. Moves tend to trigger changes, as combined factors and social influences shift. Or just developing new interests that squeeze the old ones out.
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Bok
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Tue Sep 22, 2020 6:14 am

To me it seems that these people were into tea for other reasons than the tea itself...

I can not imagine that tea will ever be not a thing in my life - unless climate change puts an end to the tea industry, which might or will happen at some point, hopefully not in my lifetime. Tea is like water to me or bread. It’s just a part of daily life and routine. Not a fad that’s passing when I feel I’m not unique enough anymore in my special interest and need to hop on the next niche, exclusive thing ;)
John_B
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Tue Sep 22, 2020 9:33 pm

Bok wrote:
Tue Sep 22, 2020 6:14 am
I can not imagine that tea will ever be not a thing in my life... Tea is like water to me or bread. It’s just a part of daily life and routine. Not a fad that’s passing when I feel I’m not unique enough anymore in my special interest and need to hop on the next niche, exclusive thing ;)
Surely I would have said the same thing about coffee at other times. Wine maybe not; that probably always felt a bit like a phase, even after a couple of years.

Even as tea was replacing coffee completely in my daily diet it seemed odd to see it go, since I'd been drinking it for a very long time at that point, varying in how serious I was about the interest at times. I'm down to drinking around 3 cups of coffee per year. I'm not opposed to it, just never really on that page.

The reviewing, writing about, and discussing tea I could definitely see dropping out for me at some point. The tea habit itself would probably just relate to me maintaining a caffeine tolerance, the ability to keep drinking it. If there was some compelling reason to stop ingesting that compound I could.
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Maerskian
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Fri Oct 30, 2020 10:20 am

Thanks a lot @mbanu .

Reading through it feels particularly terrifying for me as i tick some of the most dangerous boxes there are:

- Just started my tea-journey on january 2017
- Over the past 12 months started hoarding tea with the goal of having enough tea for the next four decades ( based on a 14g/day consumption ) plus some extra Kg to balance tea-dust, cakes lighter than they should be & even a percentage of "fails"... and i'm almost done with it ( my initial plans will be completed by late november / early december ) .

The risks are obvious & been mentioned here, easy to be confident at this early stage... but i still am, despite the odds. Fortunately always have been quite introspective and meditated quite a bit before moving on with this "madness", followed the blank-paper protocol and the advantages outweighed the issues on my particular case .

Can't deny that under the current circumstances the notion of moving out feels more terrifying than ever .

Moving this amount of tea wouldn't be easy plus i'd be worried about it... but even worse than that: i love the natural conditions of my storage as it is, isn't nearly as good as the usual eastern-Asia locations we all know or have heard about but is pretty decent, fixed a few cakes that came back to life, fixed some fossilized oolongs, improved some black teas ... the pace is obviously slower than it'd be on some of the ideal well known spots but it works well and don't need to do anything but pile tea inside.

Losing this advantage would be a terrible hit.
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StoneLadle
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Fri Oct 30, 2020 11:37 am

Dresden wrote:
Fri Sep 18, 2020 7:00 pm
StoneLadle wrote:
Thu Sep 17, 2020 3:37 am
I like Islay malts with oolong !
As a fan of a good Islay are there any particular oolongs you like to pair? I would imagine it would take something pretty heavily roasted to stand up to something like an Ardbeg.
Decent DHP goes well with Islay for sure in my estimation, as does a well done TLH but where I find most joy is in an aged oolong context and for now I'm happily nursing old traditional high fire TGY with a variety of whiskies... The hangovers are much more bearable...
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cbrace
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Sat Oct 31, 2020 2:48 pm

Maerskian wrote:
Fri Oct 30, 2020 10:20 am
- Over the past 12 months started hoarding tea with the goal of having enough tea for the next four decades ( based on a 14g/day consumption ) plus some extra Kg to balance tea-dust, cakes lighter than they should be & even a percentage of "fails"... and i'm almost done with it ( my initial plans will be completed by late november / early december ) .

The risks are obvious & been mentioned here, easy to be confident at this early stage... but i still am, despite the odds. Fortunately always have been quite introspective and meditated quite a bit before moving on with this "madness", followed the blank-paper protocol and the advantages outweighed the issues on my particular case .
So my back-of-the-envelope calculation is that you are talking about around 200 kilos of tea to last you forty years, and you should have that quantity by within a month or so. Correct? That's quite ambitious! Sounds like a good investment to me, at least in the non-financial way (I have no interest in or understanding of speculation). Buying tea for personal consumption will never get cheaper; in fact I suspect quality tea will continue to rise in price as the Chinese middle class grows.
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Bok
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Sat Oct 31, 2020 10:16 pm

@cbrace I also suspect that over the long term yield and quality of tea will decline due to climate change, in a few decades it will either cease or have to move to other geographic regions. There on the other hand people will lack the experience of making good tea so it won’t be the same either. So all in all I do not expect to have access to good fresh tea until the end of my life.

Storing some tea for aging is probably the best bet to make sure of one’s own supply.
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Maerskian
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Sun Nov 01, 2020 8:49 am

cbrace wrote:
Sat Oct 31, 2020 2:48 pm
So my back-of-the-envelope calculation is that you are talking about around 200 kilos of tea to last you forty years, and you should have that quantity by within a month or so. Correct?
That's absolutely correct, yes. In fact, suspect i already am over the 200Kg goal.

Never imagined i'd go to such lengths. By late 2019 i did place some large tea-orders from Chinese/China-based sellers just to have a big amount of tea stored and from that point onwards just raise the bar and buy at a slower pace, much more focused on teas i truly liked. This initial kinda-forced investment was motivated by sheer pessimism keeping in mind several factors, then year 2020 came and reality surpassed ( and keep surpassing ) my worst expectations and then it prompted me to go full speed even though it's really burning my pocket at one of those points in time where i should do the very opposite.

Mentioning that part to explain why i still am in the "suspect" phase:

Created a spreadsheet to check on the teas i have filed by type including as much relevant information as i can about each one ( weight included, although most of the time i'm going with generic numbers ) plus several blank cells for future notes about tasting over the coming years.

This way i also can see - aproximately - how many Kg of tea i have . Right now it's 173.62Kg on the puerh/heicha/pressed teas sheet + 12.56Kg on the loose leaf sheet, however... noting everything down takes a while and have been lagging behind but i've managed to be almost up to date and am only missing one large order ( 20kg+ ) completed on early september so it's safe to assume i might have 205Kg+ on my storage by now... plus i have another open - large - tea order that will be completed by the end of this month / early december and potentially a couple smaller orders ( 5Kg minus / each ) on november & early december... and that'd be it for a good while.
That's quite ambitious! Sounds like a good investment to me, at least in the non-financial way (I have no interest in or understanding of speculation).
Exactly my thoughts. Can't deny i feel overwhelmed and hoping i didn't overdo it, but once again... unless my health takes a severe twist as radical as to keep me away from tea, so far i'm convinced my profile is perfect ( in theory only, no such thing as perfection after all ) for this venture.

Zero interest on any type of speculation with tea either plus i don't see any future for it; unless i am mistaken private collectors based anywhere within Europe selling teas from their private stash has zero - or "close to" - interest on the global market plus we already have a few reliable stores around to hold on to ( plus MoyChay seems to be finally opening their Amsterdam store next month !! great news as well !! hope there's a price-parity on the dutch version ) .
Buying tea for personal consumption will never get cheaper; in fact I suspect quality tea will continue to rise in price as the Chinese middle class grows.
This is one of the main keys that prompted me to do it ( although we can obviously add more to the list ), have been checking & compiling all kind of graphs, articles, relevant info, etc.. from several sources, cross-checking figures... and then did the same with the tea markets only to notice the expected similarities and factors ( rural exodus, average salaries growing ... ) ... and it's certainly visible with the newer productions reaching higher & higher prices each year... and the chances to find affordable ( "dirty cheap" by current standards ) yet great teas becoming as rare as spotting some vaquita in the wild. I still remember buying 100g bags of teas i absolutely love for $5 , $6 ... a full regular 357g cake ( not high grade this one, but drinkable & enjoyable ) for $16/$18 ( all shipped ) on late 2019 ... these even weren't ( by far ) the best deals you could get by then, just teas you'd bump into on well known stores like Farmer-Leaf or Chawang not needing to resource to TaoBao, private circles, the aliexpress lottery ( some apparently manage to find amazing deals every once in a while here ) ... but those kind of deals on regular stores disappeared just at the beginning of 2020 plus now you also have to take added expenses ( higher shipping rates, customs ) into account.

Another key was European customs getting more & more strict ( now even stopping teas containing fungus, golden flowers, chinese orchids, essential oils, etc... which are banned; also, have been reported tea orders arriving opened including cakes with missing chunks that were taken for analysis ) since Trump sent those infamous $30 million to the postal union on september 2019... and the fact that by january 2021 everything coming from outside the EU will be stopped no matter the size/value... and i expect the vast majority of international parcels will be thoroughly checked ( more than ever before ) as well. This is a combination of extra trouble + extra money you have to account for when ordering.

And finally you have all this turmoil going on that can turn into anything at any given point. The biggest variable but also the most dangerous one.

With everything in mind... and not going to hide it was point #3 the one i feared the most... all factors pointed to this decision being the right one - provided i managed to pull it - because even if one or two out of those three negative keys took a sudden positive twist... the remaining one would always have enough negative impact to validate going forward anyways.

As a bonus:

These last 12 months also helped me look at my tea purchases from a very different perspective. Usually the vast majority of tea drinkers place small orders including plenty samples and "big orders" being those where you commit to a whole cake... whereas i've been blind-buying whole cakes ( multiple cakes or even tongs ) and essentially became an anomaly - even if temporary for this venture has a limit - where i've been essentially a buyer on steroids.

The experience has been unique, the perspective gained has been decidedly different, the impact - whether the experience was good or bad - definitely heavier... deeper .

Needless to say the weight of your decisions when you ride such a "truck" also force you to reflect more and think 500 times about it before going ahead, fortunately ... this is where the value of tea communites & tea bloggers / reliable tea-sites shine. Out of all the hundreds of cakes i bought "blind" ( obviously still going through 'em ) based on other people feedback i've yet to be disappointed... and more often than not those teas even exceed my expectations.

So far only have come across two failures where i risked buying multiple cakes... but those two were personal bets with zero references. This is probably a side-effect of blind-buying hundreds of cakes and being happy with everything ... to the point i probably felt like playing the lottery, immune to failure... only to be faced with the harsh reality, it's one thing to blind-buy tea with community reference... quite different going into the wild ( a basic lesson i was aware of before jumping to it ) . The worst part is that my gut told me to get away from both but did it anyways.

For those curious about the two duds and just to have a community reference:

1) The first one was a white tea pressed cake. Sold by TeaSoul ( Italy ) which has their own website... although sold through Amazon UK :


https://www.teasoul.net/en/white-tea/10 ... 07646.html

They changed the picture recently on the Teasoul webshop but it's essentially the same reference.

Bought 4 ( four !!! ) of those... at 10€ each ( shipped ) on one of those odd amazon price movements. It's the worst & most toxic ... "thing" i've ever seen... weirdly pressed, not even sure if these are even pressed tea leaves or anything else, water looks soapy and barely tinted, looks & feels like soap. Right now i don't even know what to do with it, don't even dare to use it as landfill in case it can damage the environment.

For the time being i still keep it on my storage - away from all my other cakes - in case there's a miracle and changes. Received a compressed white tea cake from Teamania time ago that was undrinkable ( way too acidic... way over human tolerance levels ) ... the brew looked like red-dyed water ( missing the usual surface tension when tea blends with water properly ) , 6 months later took a turn for the better, color changed ( dark-brown with a golden hue ) , now it was drinkable ... nice and enjoyable, so i'll give these horrors a few extra months before searching for a proper place to dump 'em .

2) Second one was the 2014 Dr Puer Nannuo cake from Puerhtea.eu ( or Teasenz european front ) .

Entirely my fault. Already aware this was mass market cheap tea, also knew this was sold dirty cheap on ebay years ago ( somewere around $10 or even slightly lower per cake ), also took a screenshot of puerhtea.eu catalogue on early 2020 where it was listed at 19€... and then it was relisted at 38€ ( currently priced even a few eur higher ) ... but once again, spoiled by my early success even with cheap cakes/tuos i considered decent enough... decided to go for it ( not risking the full price which was already absurd, but doing the math of applying the discount for large orders + previous reward points to these specific cakes ) . Bought the three cakes they had in stock back then, now i finally started one... certainly regret it... it's just the text book definition of a cheap & bad tea, something you know by heart it won't get better with time even if you lack the experience.

Oh well, can't complain with such a low failure rate i guess, re-learned a lesson i should have known by now the hard way .
Another important reason was the fact that i want to experiment aging tea and given that you need to invest some decades into it ... that's something anybody with such an interest should start doing yesterday.
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cbrace
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Sun Nov 01, 2020 10:31 am

@Maerskian: Wow, fascinating, thanks for sharing all that. A couple of quick comments
and the fact that by january 2021 everything coming from outside the EU will be stopped no matter the size/value... and i expect the vast majority of international parcels will be thoroughly checked ( more than ever before ) as well.
I hadn't heard about this before. Is this happening across Europe, in every member state? It will be a big hassle if every small tea order is opened and checked. If so this means that for those of us living in the EU will have to turn more and more to European vendors.
plus MoyChay seems to be finally opening their Amsterdam store next month !! great news as well !! hope there's a price-parity on the dutch version
This is something I'm wondering about as well. The Netherlands doesn't have a very developed tea culture and a MoyChay location here could do a lot in that regard. But commercial rates in Amsterdam (where I live) are astronomical, and for a business to be viable that means either high volume or very high retail margins. I suppose we will find out in due time which route MoyChay is going here.
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Maerskian
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Sun Nov 01, 2020 12:11 pm

cbrace wrote:
Sun Nov 01, 2020 10:31 am
Maerskian: Wow, fascinating, thanks for sharing all that.
You're welcome!
A couple of quick comments
and the fact that by january 2021 everything coming from outside the EU will be stopped no matter the size/value... and i expect the vast majority of international parcels will be thoroughly checked ( more than ever before ) as well.
I hadn't heard about this before. Is this happening across Europe, in every member state? It will be a big hassle if every small tea order is opened and checked. If so this means that for those of us living in the EU will have to turn more and more to European vendors.
This is an EU-level directive that has been in the works and passed around 2 years ago and of course will affect all members without exception. Even some eastern-Asia based sellers were fully aware of it since this - obviously - will affect 'em directly .

That said, initially this is all about all parcels coming from outside the EU being taxed despite the value ( small parcels & low-value items will no longer be exempt ), there's nothing "official" about parcels being opened & inspected but i'm afraid this is something implied and as a matter of fact... already happening ( people complaining about it already ) .

As far as i know there's been meetings to speed up the process amid all the corona commotion and while the media just mentioned it briefly and creatively, the moment you go & check what has been discussed lately you'll find they have been working on what is old fashioned protectionism.

A member on the CommuniTea at Discord already mentioned the Finnish government already has everything ready ( i'd say they were the first to do it openly as i can't find anything similar elsewhere ) and already shared the new rates that includes a fixed rate for handling ( think it was 2.9€ ) + VAT ... although can't remember if there was something else on top of those two charges and/or if there's price-ranges with different charges ( the handling fees apparently will be fixed there ).

Also, i expect each country - despite being part of "the union" - to come up with different fees/extra charges.

Opening & tearing tea orders, take samples, etc... always has been part of their protocol but rarely happened ( you'll find the odd case reported here & there over the years, still... very rare ), now things just changed after those meetings and protocols are already more strict and will be reinforced, after all this is but a training for the new situation starting on january 2021.

I placed a large tea-order from GoodTea.Eu ( Czechia ) and had to wait for some Liu An hei-cha arriving from Hong Kong supposedly at some point in early june; due to shipping delays had to wait until late july when this sellers cargo finally landed on Czechia... and the owner already shared he needed to fulfill a lot of pending orders so you could only imagine the kind of stress he was going through. And then... he was faced with customs, something he was used to handle but not the bunch of new regulations, norms ... and limitations. All of a sudden something that was regular paperwork turned Kafkian and they held the tea for two full weeks, asking for all kind of additional paperwork, taking samples, etc... so my order suffered a new delay.

As a result of these new norms, all teas with fungus, golden flowers ( think about fu cha just to name one ) , essential oils, "exotic" herbs like chinese orchids, etc... are now banned and can no longer enter the EU. Cleaned him up of his latests Liu An teas ( the types that are now deemed "illegal" ) , bought 6 fu cha bricks just in case ( although the seller told me he has organic fu cha bricks on the way, so i guess there's a way to slip 'em ) and out of spite ( when i heard that teas with essential oils are now illegal ) bought two bags of Taiwan black tea ( shan cha ) as well on top of everything else. This seller also told me he is working on importing more hei-cha and expanding the catalogue... although this new EU restrictions doesn't make it easy to find hei-cha that will pass customs.

This made me remember that my TeaMania order from early June this year also experienced some delays... also they are based on Switzerland and didn't hear any complains from the owner so i guess it was just a regular delay.

Whatever the case, this made me notice that tea stock on plenty european shops keeps shrinking ( thinking about pu-erh.sk for example ) and i can only imagine that it's not just slow shipping or sourcing trips being cancelled but potential new restrictions at customs as well.
plus MoyChay seems to be finally opening their Amsterdam store next month !! great news as well !! hope there's a price-parity on the dutch version
This is something I'm wondering about as well. The Netherlands doesn't have a very developed tea culture and a MoyChay location here could do a lot in that regard. But commercial rates in Amsterdam (where I live) are astronomical, and for a business to be viable that means either high volume or very high retail margins. I suppose we will find out in due time which route MoyChay is going here.
Indeed. Was wondering why they picked Amsterdam in particular as well, my family live in Germany 15 minutes car-distance from the dutch border and when i go over there we always take out mandatory trip and Amsterdam prices always stand out compared to any other place.

I'm hoping ( fingers crossed ) they just want a location within the EU and have a strong online presence... which isn't a far fetched idea given the scenario from 2021-onwards and would establish 'em as one of the few best choices within EU territory and virtually the best - almost lonely - choice for nice & decent-priced shou ( in fact, one out of those two small remaining orders i plan to place before the end of this year... is a shou order from moychay.nl , my shou department is pretty small compared to sheng, one sixth or maybe less... and i love shou, it's just not easy finding reliable vendors with affordable choices, that's where moychay shines ), already waiting to see this cake listed:

https://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.c ... -puer.html

But yes... why Amsterdam and not somewhere else then? , time will tell.
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cbrace
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Sun Nov 01, 2020 12:55 pm

Hi @Maerskian,

Re. EU customs. Well, I've already had a "taste" of the transaction costs; a recent order from a Hong Kong vendor required a tax payment. The tea was worth only around €40 and is taxed at 9%, so the tax was only around €3,80, but the transaction cost charged by Post.NL was €13, which is standard. This will be a real killer if it will be henceforth applied to all small parcels, including those under €22, which I believe is the current threshold, here in NL at least.

With regard to Moychay, do you know for sure they will be opening a mail order business here in NL?

I have no inside information on why they chose Amsterdam, but I have been following their Instagram account, and the vibe it projects leads me to think that they want to plug into the hip, counter-culture vibe of Amsterdam and the many tourists this attracts. Just speculating here.
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Maerskian
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Sun Nov 01, 2020 2:22 pm

cbrace wrote:
Sun Nov 01, 2020 12:55 pm
Hi Maerskian,

Re. EU customs. Well, I've already had a "taste" of the transaction costs; a recent order from a Hong Kong vendor required a tax payment. The tea was worth only around €40 and is taxed at 9%, so the tax was only around €3,80, but the transaction cost charged by Post.NL was €13, which is standard. This will be a real killer if it will be henceforth applied to all small parcels, including those under €22, which I believe is the current threshold, here in NL at least.
The worst part is that we can expect those numbers to go up ( think 20-something%+ instead of 9% ) . On one of those recent meetings one of the main items of discussion was standarized taxes... with Netherlands being one of the countries on the eye of the storm ( not talking about tea now, but plenty services, from banking to their docks and many other services ) . Their initial aim is to make us "equal"... not to lower taxes, but to raise 'em of course.

Not that it's of any consolation but on Spain they charge you around 20-25€ just to begin with, then they can go upwards. At some point bypassed such issues by funneling my tea & other orders through my brother's in Germany, with this and the usual stuff from German stores that's more convenient to have shipped domestic i had large packages re-shipped to me afterwards with all kind of stuff... only now German customs are also quite troublesome ( YunnanSourcing no longer ships to Germany from their China warehoouse ) so this option is fading ... currently only use it for my US/Canada orders and of course domestic orders within Germany.
With regard to Moychay, do you know for sure they will be opening a mail order business here in NL?
Contacted 'em through the main site wondering if there was any chance they could ship through any other neighboring country ( i.e. : Estonia, like the georgian tea producers from renegadetea do ) to avoid issues with customs and stressed i was dying to place an order ;it was then they mentioned their dutch store and that i could order through 'em once it was opened.
I have no inside information on why they chose Amsterdam, but I have been following their Instagram account, and the vibe it projects leads me to think that they want to plug into the hip, counter-culture vibe of Amsterdam and the many tourists this attracts. Just speculating here.
Not even around social media but did check the instagram link they sent me... and guess they just make it look as any IG account should and as any business nowadays they'll need as much exposure as they can therefore can't walk away from it.

I'd like to think they researched into it before signing the lease so guess they saw some potential exactly for the very same reasons you mentioned, the obvious question on such a crazy year is if these conclusions were draw pre-pandemic but decided to go ahead anyways or they saw an opening just in the middle of everything.

Whatever the case, as long as they manage to move their stock to NL they always have the option to move somewhere else with a lower rent and re-focus their business. After all they are one of the selected few tea sellers with their own production line ( almost alone on the affordable-yet-nice shou front ) , exclusive teaware & deep catalogue. Unless they are tax-bombed while moving their inventory they have everything to be one of the best tea stores within EU territory, and arguably the one with the deepest catalogue ( unless i'm forgetting about any shop ) .
John_B
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Sun Nov 01, 2020 9:35 pm

That's a really interesting idea, running numbers on pricing trends and projected consumption and then buying 200 kg of tea (or more; however much it was).

Isn't there a concern about taste (personal preference) shifting over time, and expectation about storage results changing?

I don't think that would actually be a deal-breaker anyway, since it would seem simple enough to sell off any amount of the stock for at least what you had in it, as long as it was purchased at a reasonable market value, and stored properly. A dip in pricing for pu'er isn't outside the range of possibility but a long term move downwards seems unlikely.

In a lot of cases it would seem obvious that the opposite would occur, that short-term speculation buying would be simple enough. If someone had bought up 100 of the 2017 Yunnan Sourcing Impression cakes, for example, those really should be worth a good bit more across any time-frame, nearly as soon as the other existing stock ran out. The same would be true of Dayi versions, and so on, there would just be broader pool to "run out."
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pedant
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Sun Nov 01, 2020 10:16 pm

@Maerskian, i'd be interested in reading about your storage setup for 200kg. and maybe even seeing some pics :mrgreen:

are you just keeping it in the open? do you have a dedicated room? what's the temp and RH like?
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