eBay pu erh - quality question

Hello friend,

So if the beeng was intact, and the plastic thread was woven in the cake then it has nothing to do with the ebay seller, unless they are quite skilled and have way too much time on their hands but to play petty practical jokes.

Rather it occurred in the manufacturing process somewhere. Personally I don’t have real high regards for CNNP, mass manufacture effects quality. But as for being concerned, I wouldn’t let that incident effect your ebay purchases, nor the finishing of the cake. But you do get what you pay for, when you pay a few dollars for a cake you can’t expect it was put together and handled with the same care that a small batch would be.

You will find all kinds of things in pu’er tea. Hair, seeds, etc. are common, but people have found other things (there’s a teachat thread about this). I can’t speak about this specific seller / item, but, especially for something from ‘06, I doubt the product is fake, or not what it’s said to be. I wouldn’t spend a lot of time losing sleep over it, and finding these things before brewing is better than finding them after…

I have found the same type thing in some less expensive puerhs that I have bought, I have also found small pebbles and whole cloves that werent suppose to be there in some of these cheap bricks.