Mei Leaf / Chinalife - 1600 Year old Pu-erh

565 Replies
DaHongPow said

Why is it that this thread has not been locked to protect Mei Leaf when any threads that criticize Yunnan Sourcing are locked before the discussion even begins for “personal attacks”? Are personal attacks on Don somehow allowed by the forum rules?

“to protect Mei Leaf”

Why the $#&! would anyone want to protect a company that scam their customers with “1600 year old tree tea”? That is the question.

“when any threads that criticize Yunnan Sourcing are locked”
They are? Can you provide links to threads where YS has been criticized for something valid and the thread has been locked “to protect them”?

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Wes B said

This is a long running thread of criticizing Mei Leaf has been running quite awile. I’m fairly new to steepster. Seems to be a lot of negativeness on this thread. It is not a good thing.

What is not a good thing is that companies like Mei Leaf scam their customers.

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Wes B said

Can anyone direct me to a 2017 ancient tree a bing Dao puerh. I tried looking for one I can seem to find one. Just curious the price they go for elsewhere.

meowster said

According to the Chinese article linked below, 2017 Spring Ancient Tree Bing Dao is 30-40K NTD (I think it’s in NTD since the article is in traditional Chinese). That’s about $1027-1370 per kg, which is >$10 per gram. It specifies that it’s the old bush though, and there are other and cheaper price points for other areas on Bing Dao.

http://www.ifuun.com/a20176132942542/

Prices vary on tmall but seem to be much cheaper? not sure if it’s reliable though.

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OR “ancient tree” puerh isn’t the only thing they sell and some people purchase other teas from them and seem to be pleased with those teas. Yes some defend their claims, i don’t but i’m not convinced whether the entire shop should be avoided because of their ancient tree puerhs. I’m always pro consumers and if it’s fake it should be shouted from the rooftops, but it’s getting a little pitch-forkey for my taste. And with that, i’m out.

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In the threads where people seem to enjoy piling on a vendor for false claims it seems like part of that—beyond mob mentality, the fun of throwing stones—is general pent-up frustration over vendor exaggeration and questionable claims. You can’t point to health claims or others about qi and say “that’s wrong,” even though it’s normal to get a sense that many are complete BS. If a vendor goes far enough to claim a sheng is from a 1600 year old tree it’s finally a chance to say “gotcha!,” this one is wrong. That may or may not map back onto other specific reservations about what else Mei Leaf is saying, and it seems possible that could almost be beside the point, in one sense.

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tea123 said

In case anyone is interested, Mei Leaf session #6. Live YouTube stream tea party:

https://youtu.be/fMmCE3Q0Bh8

tea123 said

Live now!

tea123 said

25 Year TGY
1992 Tie Guan Yin
£52.90 for 50g
https://meileaf.com/tea/25-year-tgy/

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Good session it was. I discovered this channel and found one video in particular interesting, about tea trade and the (mis)information in that world, and that it’s not all black and white: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwvx3yrsyLU

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Discussing the authenticity of a vendor’s tea quality, pricing and sales strategy is always good for tea drinkers. Although I am skeptical why that Yunnan Sourcing controversy/ discussion was hastily deleted while this Mei Leaf one is perfectly acceptable. Vendors/ topics should be moderated with the same standard with no bias.

tea123 said

Welcome to steepster

Pretty sure that discussion was on r/tea Reddit. Then someone brought the Reddit thread up here and was asked why.

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Error said

Gu Shu Bing Dao was around 20 000CNY last year …just roughly speaking, many factors adjust the price. Some “Bind Dao” come from area near by or might be a mixture etc. Amway 1600 old tree is **** :-) those kind of trees are “protected” ( looked after ) by government. Us, normal mortal people can’t get even 1g of it. So don’t worry :-)

AllanK said

Yet Mei Leaf has 600 year old tree Bing Dao gushu from 29 pounds per 100g. This sort of thing is why I don’t trust Don. I do think he sells good teas but he feels it necessary to lie about them.

He should just call them gushu probably unless he actually has strong evidence. It is disappointing. In the long run this might hurt him, even though it seems to pay off for now. Then again most tea drinkers don’t come to tea fora.

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Hi, I was just casually looking up information on some new tea vendors to try when I stumbled on this wild ride of a thread. To the people who have been active here for over a year, what a strange way to represent your love of tea.
Anyway, as a relatively novice tea drinker I think it’s pretty obvious that maybe literally everywhere is lying about their teas. Exaggerated age puerh, lies about location, low quality knockoff cultivars, whatever. I’ve seen fakes on mei leaf, verdant tea, yunnan sourcing, etc. Everywhere. White2Tea doesn’t lie about their tea, they just lie about what matters when buying tea. Oh don’t worry, you dont need to know what this tea tastes like before buying it, its about the EXPERIENCE or whatever.
All of these practices are bad. Misrepresenting your tea is bad. Misrepresenting anything you’re trying to sell is bad. But really, I’m not going to get caught up in it. The teas I buy from Mei Leaf or Verdant Tea or white2tea, they’ve almost all been really delicious. Don’t forget the real enemy: factory farms, tea bags, and the colonialism and exploitation that lead to today’s western tea culture (which is obviously a sack full of flavored shit)

anyway, here’s my favorite video on tea fraud, forgery and mislabeling, by some tea farmer that sells his own tea through a shop online (i havent tried it but he seems nice) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwvx3yrsyLU

I just posted this link a few comments above. After rereading this thread i also found it in the earlier pages. But it’s a good video yeah. The thing with Mei leaf is that it’s so obviously bs. This is bad, but in a way also good, because far less will believe it (not saying it’s a good thing he does that of course). Is he a farmer though? I thought he just had a good connection with farmers close by.

oops didnt mean to repost a video. it’s very good though. i guess they’re maybe not farmers but he calls himself a “tea producer” so maybe he presses cakes. i’ve seen a handful of his videos.

anyway i guess my point is you can sell some good tea and call it 1600 trees and you’re lying or you can sell shit tea as “competition grade jin jun mei” for $10. who’s to say which is worse? the low quality tea is cheaper, so no big loss, but at least the fake puerh tastes good. (verdant tea and YS both sell bullshit jin jun mei). my real point is that these lies are all bad but these are systemic issues with all/nearly all vendors and nothing will change unless vendors are aware that they are all on notice, not just mei leaf or just verdant tea, and not just about tree age.

Agreed.

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