Transparency in the Tea Industry?

How about “Alienating Potential Customers”?

And how about “Can we just move move on, please?” You didn’t like one of Scott’s jokes; ain’t no big deal, you’ll get over it. You don’t want to give him business because of that? Do as you please.

How about going back to the original subject of this thread – Transparency in the Tea industry?

Nothing Scott said offends me. What offends me is a vendor lying about their tea being from 1800 year old trees and then doubling down on that lie.

That’s fine that neither of you are bothered by anything Scott did. I was mildly irritated by his comments on the Reddit thread, but I’m much more annoyed with his ridiculous defense of those comments.

I’m bothered about Verdant’s misrepresentation of their products, too. The two are not mutually exclusive.

How exactly do you want to get back on topic? It seemed like everything that could be said about Verdant’s lack of transparency has been said, and the only new comments not about Yunnan Sourcing were a certain user bumping the thread.

@adaigo breeze And yet – you’ve said the same thing over over and over again. To paraphrase your comment – everything that could be said about your unhappiness with Scott’s response has been said. Repeatedly. How about adding something new to the discussion?

MzPriss, I reread my comments, and while I did bring up some things more than once, it was in the interest of clarifying what seemed to be a misunderstanding. Now what in particular would you like to hear my thoughts on? :)

some babies in this thread with very wavering ideals…

Yeah I think everything that needs to be said has been said as well

I mean, I think there are more things to be said about transparency in the tea industry, and it doesn’t need to be limited to Verdant.

Hey, thanks! I appreciated the dialog and truly enjoy this forum.

As someone who’s been silently following the entirety of this thread and read every single reply, I have to say that I greatly dislike the direction it’s gone. I’ve formed my own opinion, which I’ll happily discuss privately if anyone wishes to do so.

There are some comments here I agree with and others I strongly disagree with. I pretty well refuse to state my opinion openly though because this has quite clearly divided the community and I strongly dislike that a line has been clearly drawn that’s left long time, new, and active members alike on opposite sides and fighting. This is not constructive.

Call it tone policing, being “sen-sitive”, or whatever other crap you want; the reason I love Steepster over other communities such as Reddit just as an example is that this has always been a community that fostered the growth of tea knowledge and passion with members here supporting each other’s respective journeys. There’s nothing wrong with discussing transparency in the tea industry, criticizing the way some businesses conduct themselves personally or professionally or in regards to their marketing. In fact, that’s a large part of the learning process which makes Steepster so great. But there’s a problem with HOW we’re doing it if it affects the dynamic of the community this much.

At this point nothing new can be said, other than regardless of the position any of you have taken I still respect all of you and will not view any member of this community as lesser for their participation in this thread other than one particular troll.

I am Sweden.

Switzerland?

Both were neutral.

@Roswell Strange Was my post really in the same category as that of an admitted troll who was just stirring up trouble for the lulz? If so, I guess I should bow out.

I’m with you!!

…and with you!!

There was another post talking about companies being transparent about where they get their teas—from a wholesaler, specific tea farms, etc.

A recent BBC article addressed health and trade violations on certain tea farms where some very big name bagged tea companies get their tea (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-34173532?SThisFB). I personally think that would be an issue of transparency, too.

As a consumer and a self-proclaimed logical individual, I can tell the difference between an opinion and a fact. When I’m reading about a company and their teas, I expect facts to be true, and I expect opinions to be inflated.

I think transparency boils down to not trying to hide facts that we as consumers and tea-fans might consider distasteful, and not perpetuating facts that may not be true, cannot be validated, or are themselves inflated.

That’s all of my two cents. Haha! :D

there was a discussion about the true age of some tea, which got out of hand & ended up with comments thrown about, accusations of lying which were pretty well backed up, but done in a way that offended some.

Most of us here dont want to talk about it much more, and want to move on, as it got out of hand when a troll appeared which made this place not that nice to be in.

+1 Rasseru.

ok, thanks. thats all i need to know lol

and some people should, without a doubt, not visit reddit or they will get their feelings hurt.

Yes, I think people understand that it might still be a good cup, or a bad cup.

I dont like this practice really, its not the way we do things in the UK,
- we dont have ‘Champagne’ in our shops unless it is from only Champagne, in France. We have ‘Brut’ & ‘Sparkling’ wine.

maybe In China there is a cultural difference, (A language difference? – everyone calls this type of tea Tai Ping, so it is Tai Ping, like we do say ’lets get champagne, even though it is brut, or cava)

or way the economies differs, lots of people in china, they need to make their business thrive somehow, so this has become the norm to survive?

or just being able to get away with it due to no enforcement of laws? (copyright laws which dont exist -?)

Anyway, I can play devils advocate as much as possible – basically Someone lied for money.

It was actually $60/100g – still could be a fair price, but there is some really good competition

@Cwyn, you raise a good question about how much we as buyers should eschew or play-along with counterfeit tea. I know I have never tasted real Da Hong Pao. The tea, I’ve been told, is so rare even in China that it costs an arm and a leg and, perhaps this is a tall tale, but as I’ve heard most Chinese who buy it do not simply drink it themselves and instead reserve it only for the most honored guests and occasions in their homes. Yet I have bought Da Hong Pao from many vendors who all claim theirs is some exception to this situation, some lucky find they stumbled across from some small farmer in the Wuyi mountains who happens to produce authentic Da Hong Pao exclusively for a Western-targeted online tea vendor, and at just 12 bucks an ounce retail (or less!). If that doesn’t sound fishy I don’t know what does, yet I continue to buy Da Hong Pao because I am more often pleased with teas under that name than I am disappointed by them. Do I like the practice of calling teas by a name that proclaims them as something more rare and prestigious than they actually are? No. Do I like the idea of pretending I am actually drinking that tea by buying it anyway? Maybe so. Maybe this is where we, the consumers, are partially guilty for the myths that surround our tea purchases.

As with all hobbyists, we all want to experience something rare and special at some point, or find the holy grails of our passions. Vendors know this, and they know the prices they can demand because of our lust for these relics. It is standard practice in the tea industry to build up a story around teas to create hype and promote sales. Sometimes these are true stories about the cultivar, the locale, the farmers, or a unique processing method. Unfortunately, from what I’ve seen, it is also common if not standard practice to outright lie if it makes the tea sell better, and from what I’ve seen, it also seems most tea companies that don’t do it are successful on a much smaller scale than ones that do.

It all comes back to how you classify things, like with the case of Champagne. Or, for example, Taiwan Tea Crafts sells a tea called Songboling Shui Xian. It is from a Taiwanese cultivar (Si Ji Chun a.k.a. Four Seasons) and is grown in Taiwan. They are very clear about this in the description, and about the fact that it is not a true Wuyi Shui Xian tea. In fact the finished leaves more closely resemble beaded Taiwanese oolong than Chinese strip style oolongs from Wuyi. By all conventional classifications, to me, there is no way this tea is a Shui Xian and no real justification for calling it that. Yet the name of this famous Wuyi tea is used to generate curiosity around this experimental Baguashan tea, and I found myself purchasing some just to see what it’s like. Strangely enough, despite all the differences in terroir and processing, it tastes similar to most Shui Xian teas I’ve had. Still, if I was in charge of selling this tea, I wouldn’t dream of calling it Shui Xian. I might write in its description that lovers of Shui Xian might enjoy it, but I wouldn’t misname it so. On the other hand, they were honest about its real nature as an experimental tea and it is priced modestly.

But while you can say or imply that a tea is made in the style of or in the image of another more famous tea, and is named thusly, I think it’s a far cry from saying the age of the trees you sourced from is hundreds or thousands of years older than those trees really are, knowing fully that it makes the tea a curio worthy of demanding lofty prices. So, in relation to the original controversy that sparked this post, I think there are claims that are generally accepted as expected and maybe permissible exaggerations by most of the tea community (e.g. Does anyone other than new tea drinkers really think they’re buying authentic Da Hong Pao?) and claims that most of the tea community is blind to and doesn’t realize are lies or exaggerations; these we end up getting totally duped by, and I think it is not only warranted but extremely helpful that they are brought to the forefront when they occur, especially when popular vendors within the industry are the ones misleading, and even more appropriately when those vendors create a public image of transparency, trustworthiness, and superiority to their competitors because of these traits.

I just wonder if it’s a slippery slope in part caused by many tea enthusiasts being ambivalent or unconcerned with the misrepresentation or misnaming of so many teas and buying them anyway. I’m glad some people have spoken up so as not to enable a further degradation into knowing really nothing about the teas we buy, but the sad takeaway from this is that we truly can’t without producing the tea ourselves… so we’re forever doomed to wonder what we’re really buying, from any vendor, even the most knowledgeable and trustworthy ones, who are human, and could still make a mistake. Or they could be in the know about something very few people are and willing to lie because they think it’s unlikely they’ll be caught. Though I will say… I think it’s easier as consumers to learn what a tea we are buying couldn’t possibly be than to learn what it actually is.

Thanks @Cwyn, this is a really good point. While the notion of “fake” tea might be most prevalent in the puer industry due to its status as a collector’s item and something that gains monetary value (though I would say not necessarily subjective value) with age and rarity, there are plenty of non-puer Chinese teas being routinely sold under false pretences. Tai Ping might be the most egregious example, but several of the “famous” Chinese teas being bought and sold by many many tea vendors are mostly fakes. Most of the tea being sold as “Long Jing” isn’t actually produced in the West Lake area of Hangzhou. None of the tea being sold as “Da Hong Pao” is actually from the original 6 protected bushes, and much of it probably isn’t even from a related cultivar or the Wuyi mountains at all. Most “Jin Jun Mei” isn’t actually made from high-elevation Wuyi wild tea bushes/trees. So in a sense I get the impression that these names are now just used as descriptors: long jing means a green tea pressed flat during processing, da hong pao means a roasted dark oolong with a “rock oolong” flavour profile, and jin jun mei means a black (red) tea made only from buds. Which is fine, if everybody can agree that those names are just descriptors and not meant to imply anything specific about the tea’s geographic origins. But then tea vendors (both Western and domestic) continue to use the stories and legends and various flowery descriptions as a marketing tool and in order to justify charging higher prices for the teas with “name recognition”. And many of them even say things like “the market is full of fakes, but the tea I sell is definitely The Real Deal” (ha!). So what is a consumer to do? If we stop buying tea from vendors that sell these “famous name” teas, we might be missing out on a lot of great tea! But if we keep paying a premium for the “famous” teas (even knowing we’re probably not getting what they’re claming to be selling) then we’re just encouraging the practice of bending/stretching/twisting the truth in order to make a sale.

The champagne example mentioned by @Rasseru is a good parallel to the tea world. Another example like the Tai Ping Hou Kou @cwyn mentions is Long Jing, or Dragonwell. When I buy it, I want to know where it was grown and produced (one of the traditional villages or elsewhere) and which cultivar it is (one of the Long Jing cultivars from the traditional villages or the “grown everywhere” LongJing#43), among other things. They may both be great teas but I want to know what I am getting for the price.

Standards are one way to try to address issues like this. One attempt to start a standards discussion is the Specialty Tea Manifesto (http://specialtyteaassociation.org/2015/12/minimum-quality-standards-for-specialty-tea/). Obviously, there could still be deception and counterfeiting, but at least there would be some more concrete metrics to establish value if the tea industry as a whole began to establish standards. There would be some “transparency” to the consumer and small tea retailers.

I try to get as much of the information mentioned in the manifesto as possible on the teas I carry. I try to get to know my few suppliers personally. If I can’t get the info or I sense that a source doesn’t want to supply it or my gut senses obfuscation, I don’t carry that tea or work with that supplier. I then pass all that information on to my customers and believe, as Lu Yü stated, “Its goodness is a decision for the mouth to make.”

so you are saying that even maybe the duck shit oolong have nothing to do with actual duck shit? :D

Ya Shi Duck Shit aroma has my favourite story ive heard.

Apparently the farmer told people that the trees made tea that smelled like duck shit because the tea was so good he didnt want anyone to steal cuttings :D

Good example, and I agree. I think a lot of people were half-expecting someone from Verdant to step up in response to all this commotion and simply say what any truly transparent tea vendor probably should in this situation “We’ve shared the info we have about this tea and as far as we know it is true. We might have made a mistake. We’ll look into this further to verify the info.” but the outright refusal to even consider the evidence piled against their claims seems very suspicious to me. I think the example you shared is a perfectly honorable way to be transparent. They admitted they don’t have the means to verify all those claims about the product that were on the label, and that they might not be true, but that it’s a good tea worth selling. Kudos to that.

@Lion the text in the example I posted is even stronger than that: they actually confirm that the wrapper is BS: “we can verify that exactly zero of those things are 100% true”.

Agreed about Verdant’s reply here. It’s 2417 words long – that’s 5 pages long in Arial 10, and it’s basically a very long list of very detailed but completely false claims. Feels actually way worse than the initial page where they were selling the “fake” 1800 y/o tea.

I agree, that would have been preferable.