Single tree!!?! Can it be true?

[LeoFox]

Recently read this from @aet's blog, which got me thinking:
https://www.pageoftea.com/the-truth-abo ... -black-tea

Very trendy marketing strategies are popping out from every 2nd shop. The one of the funniest one is “Dan Zhu Hong or Pu-erh tea” ….tea from one tree. So I just asked tea boss whether he can distinguish if the tea comes from 1 or  2 trees  After few more “itchi” questions he turned to be more honest 

Is single tree really possible?

Hojo:

https://hojotea.com.my/posts-225/

And I feel doubtful these thin trees from hojo are really 300 yo

SmartSelect_20210826-091355_Samsung Internet.jpg (442.1 KiB) Viewed 3819 times

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Esp when compared to this 30 yo tree. As Alex says - add a 0 to make it neater:

viewtopic.php?p=38793#p38793

[Balthazar]

Farmerleaf has an interesting offering, "Jingmai Single Trees" (in plural):

We could sell the harvest of each tree individually, this would result in 500g-2kg batches, but there are two problems to this. Firstly, such small batches would be very hard to process, we like to have at least 7kg of fresh leaves in the wok in order to get enough steam coming out, by processing individual trees, we would have to be very careful, but it's still possible. Secondly, single tree batches tend to have a singular taste, there would be large variations depending on the tree's genetics and growing conditions. This is why we prefer to harvest a couple dozen kgs of fresh leaves from selected trees and process them together, we get more consistency and more complexity.

There's also this Marshaln post, which touches on both the single tree and dubious age claims topics.

He said when he first went to Yiwu, this tree was supposed to be 600 years old. It was just growing in the wild, one of the older trees, but certainly nothing too special. A few years later, in 2012 when he visited this spot again, the tree was now 1400 years old, not 600. By then, it had been “protected” with this metal cage you see surrounding it, and also some concrete poured around it to help protect it from, presumably, falling off the slope or something. Fast forward a few more years to today – as you can see in the picture, the tree is either dead or about to die, with no leaves and no real sign of life.

[...]

Just look at this tree though – how much tea do you think it can realistically produce? It’s no taller than a person and half. Even if you chop down the entire tree and took down all the leaves when it was in full bloom, chances are it’s no more than a couple kilos when fried and dried.

[Bok]

Also probably worth extending this to Dancong, which in an ideal world would also be coming from one tree/bush, as the name promises.

I heard that the most expensive Dancongs can top Yancha in terms of price exactly partly for this reason. Very low yield of only harvested from one bush/tree.

[wave_code]

As the old P.T Barnum saying goes...

The thing for me is why do I want to know what ONE particular tree tastes like? Of course I guess I'm being told its the 'best one' ... in principle it seem like a marketing ploy trying to adapt something like a single cask approach here, though in effects its really more like a wine made with grapes from only one vine (given the work of wine and spirits I'm sure this equally ridiculous thing has probably been done). I recall Marshaln also talking somewhere too about how he found most unblended pu uninteresting too because you don't get the complexity you can by combining different material with varying character/profiles. I think he went on to also make the comparison again to whiskey about how blends seemed to get a bad rap for so long and more recently people are realizing how blends can and do probably totally wallop unblended whiskeys, particularly when it comes to complexity/smoothness vs price point.

the only real appeal I could see to drinking single tree tea would be if it were one's own personal tree, just sort of as a fun gimmick - you get your own little personal tea each year that only you have/made and the whole quality thing goes out the window and its not about whether yours is the best or 3 million years old, its just thats the one that is yours and its cute.

[faj]

The recent trend around non-fungible tokens can give a perspective. The idea with them is being able to transform an (approximately) infinite flow of low-value blobs of bits into an (approximately) infinite series of individually scarce items with nonzero value. This is, to be sure, entirely disconnected of any inherent value the underlying item may have : you do not need to pay upward of 1M$ to get yourself a crappy rock image if you want one.

I think non-fungible tokens, as ridiculous as they may seem (to me at least), should be closely studied as their dynamics, I would guess, are exactly those of fine art, as well as "collectible" teas, wines and spirits. In all these cases, you quickly reach a pricing level where the value is essentially a buildup of mutually-reinforcing speculation and status-signalling. Story-telling builds status, status increases value, increasing value attracts speculation, and the whole decadent show becomes in itself part of the story and contributes to attract the attention that feeds the beast.

Turning a flow of nondescript tea leaves into (real or faked) tiny, single-tree tea lots can create value in the same way that turning random images into non-fungible tokens can.

[LeoFox]

@faj at least you can drink tea. What can you do with this??

[faj]

faj at least you can drink tea. What can you do with this??

You can brag about it. You can bask in the pleasure of knowing all your buddies know you really, demonstrably spent this much money to get something of little practical value. If you are done bragging, you can resell it too. It is like purchasing a van Gogh, but without (a) the presence of a physical object (b) the cover story that you got it because it is beautiful, the artist is a genius... Same thing, really, only a bit less romantic.

[LeoFox]

faj at least you can drink tea. What can you do with this??

You can brag about it. You can bask in the pleasure of knowing all your buddies know you really, demonstrably spent this much money to get something of little practical value. If you are done bragging, you can resell it too. It is like purchasing a van Gogh, but without (a) the presence of a physical object (b) the cover story that you got it because it is beautiful, the artist is a genius... Same thing, really, only a bit less romantic.

Not so far from monkey after all

[Bok]

Not so far from monkey after all

If we were all even closer to monkeys, the world would be a better place... just without all the mostly pointless toys and creations we devised over the course of our short history haha

[Bok]

And I feel doubtful these thin trees from hojo are really 300 yo

I was shown a tea flower tree once, supposedly 300y old and not much larger than a big chunky bonsai, so I guess pruning has some sort of influence as well on the overall size.

[klepto]

I retain the right to be a skeptic at all times. My early tea experiences with vendors and their tall tales was not pleasant.
Worse than punji stick traps with poo on the end of the stick. It was also very costly. I guess it comes with the territory when you are selling something, but the outright BS should be called out by those who are more experienced.

Wow, you are selling 2000 year old tea picked by monkeys who are tea masters for the low price of $.30/per gram?

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[aet]

Recently read this from aet's blog, which got me thinking:
https://www.pageoftea.com/the-truth-abo ... -black-tea

Very trendy marketing strategies are popping out from every 2nd shop. The one of the funniest one is “Dan Zhu Hong or Pu-erh tea” ….tea from one tree. So I just asked tea boss whether he can distinguish if the tea comes from 1 or  2 trees  After few more “itchi” questions he turned to be more honest 

Is single tree really possible?

It's funny that author of that post also sells single tree!
https://www.yunnancraft.com/en/sheng-pu ... hu-dan-zhu

Yes, I'm the author of the blog and I have uploaded the product on our website ( online shop ) . I also honestly wrote that we mixed those bags because it's just too hassle to pres 1.3kg , then 2.2kg, then 1.8kg...end so on.
"Maocha came in separate bags . We decided to mix them all together in order to get an unique product. "
The product doesn't come from our brand but my wife relatives , who decided to print Dan Zhu on the wrapper despite it is not а single tree product.

I was being honest and then it results kick on forum like this ........fair enough, my bad.

The puer Dan Zhu is concept which works in loose leaf and pressed if some private order. Hardly for resell in shop , unless some VIP material in luxury tea-shop ( nowadays many trying to look like that ) .

And thanks for pointing out this product, I've should have thought about this and made it more clear.
I put an additional info to explain that we respect the name chosen by producer despite it's not being a Single Tree product.
I have also modified the sentence which might suggest we are the producers "We decided to mix them all together " ( it was because I was helping with mixing ) .
Hope it helps to clear up our name a bit.
Should you have more comments to some doubtful claims on our website, please contact me directly ( or via website email ) before posting it on some forums.
I do modify / edit our online shop ( mainly descriptions ) along the way I'm learning about the business and tea here ( as I update our blog ) . It's not that long time ago , we had tea tree age ( actual years claim ) written on some Gushu stuff ( I it took all down , hope haven't missed somewhere ) .
At the beginning we also had in many puer description stuff like " tea has a good / powerful Qi " and that kinda BS , which I believed that time was cool to have.
So thanks again for this " kick " , but I would really appreciate private contact first in order to avoid some misunderstandings which might occur in threads like this.

Thanks for understanding and following our blog!

[klepto]

Yes, I'm the author of the blog..
Thanks for understanding and following our blog!

I really appreciate the smart tea buyer section of your wbsite. I've danced in the minefields, come away with some war wounds but I don't want others to follow behind me .
Your site and others like Tillerman really help the buyer to beware and also how to assess the quality of tea.
Now if we could only get Apple(tm) and Facebook(tm) to admit some things we would be way ahead of the game..

[LeoFox]

@aet I edited the post to remove the "kick" since you clarified the situation.

[Bok]

I really appreciate the smart tea buyer section of your wbsite. I've danced in the minefields, come away with some war wounds but I don't want others to follow behind me .
Your site and others like Tillerman really help the buyer to beware and also how to assess the quality of tea.
Now if we could only get Apple(tm) and Facebook(tm) to admit some things we would be way ahead of the game..

Word to the wise! A rare thing these days.