Mei Leaf / Chinalife - 1600 Year old Pu-erh

Not sure if this is just trolling or wishful thinking?

With anyone selling gushu it comes down to two things, how much do you trust the seller and how high is his claim. Trees as old as 500 years are known to exist. Gushu could in theory be made from them but if real it will be expensive. Trees older than 500 years are an extreme claim, at least from what I know. I get this information from Scott at Yunnan Sourcing. He has said the oldest trees he has heard of are about 500 years. Most gushu is not this old however. When a seller claims it is gushu period but charges only $50 or $75 a bing you know it isn’t gushu. Any real gushu will cost you some bucks. So remember before buying gushu to ask questions. How much do I trust this seller? Is his price point about tight for gushu? How wild are his claims? Remember what Don from Mei Leaf says about the trees in his video on YouTube. That these trees were planted before the Roman Empire fell in Europe. Do you really think he could get something that old for that price? I doubt it?

He certainly cannot. See below where I posted some examples of prices of the raw material (not even mao cha). Real gushu material is incredibly expensive. Also keep in mind the prices I’m talking about probably have some wiggle room, but it would have to be a tiny fraction of that price list (which is compiled by buyers) in order to retail at this price point. In other words, impossible.

Thanks AllanK,
I totally understand this argument I’ve read numerous Threads about this same thing. I get it everyone on the Tea community gets that these are false claims. I’m just asking for links to where these Tea sellers like Yunnan Sourcing found these things out… if nobody has any links or answers I totally understand it’s probably hard to prove if you don’t go to Yunnan yourself, but that is all I’m asking here.. Does anyone have actual hard evidence that I could look at and show friends and other tea buyers because once again many would love to verify without a shadow of a doubt that it is impossible to source teas from ancient Gushu treas. I totally take everyone at their word but just humor me and say that this was a science lab, or a court of justice and we had to have actual facts other than the consesnsus of tea buyers on Steepster what kind of evidence could I Hold in my hands and say this is it.. this is the hard evidence.. again maybe it’s not out their I AM SIMPLY ASKING….

You asked for links, I gave you links. Are they not satisfying? Do you think this is some kind of tea conspiracy where everyone has it out for Mei Leaf, including Chinese puer specialist websites? Come on now…

DonBei… I appreciate the links you gave me. They cleared up a lot of of my questions but they were claims from locals about pricing and unfortunately it was in half mandarin so it wasn’t exactly conclusive for me.. I don’t get why everyone even thinks I’m talking about Mei Leaf.. I literally have friends who want to understand more about ancient Tea trees Puer production, and they want to have verifiable sources that explain this.. The root of my question is does anybody actually verify the age of their trees or is it all based on the reputation of Tea sellers.. does that make sense? I can take everyone’s word all day but does anyone have links.. I’m not sure why it’s such an out there question. If no then no if yes than yes.. just a straight answer.. That’s all… I don’t want another "well Jimmy Yunnan said so I guess we should take him at his word.. I want a www. Ancient tree science .com lol you know what I mean….. an actual link to real scientific facts… I heard that they were able to age the oldest Tea tree in the world known to be 3200 years old… it’s the reason China has so much pride as the origin of the tea tree… Is it too hard to do that as a tea seller.. If so I understand I just would like to see that on paper, does that make sense or am I going to get the same response from everybody 8 more times…

Sigh. Look it up. It’s common knowledge that in order to accurately age a tree you need to take a core sample. Most sellers aren’t willing or able to do that. Also, the links I provided prove conclusively that Mei Leaf cannot be selling true ancient arbor material at that price point. Impossible.

I also know that you can get a ballpark by the size of the tree I mean if the thing is as big as an oak I don’t think it’s very hard to tell that it’s an old tree. Anyway It makes sense what you saying DongBei. I’m a little disappointed in companies like Mei Leaf and others who really make so many claims with no real evidence to back them up.. I mean it would be one thing if they had footage of a massive tree tree being picked and processed in front of your eyes I don’t think that it would leave much room for doubt, but all we have are grainy pictures of people standing next random trees and then we’re told that their selling 1600 year old Puer… Very sad and obviously bad for the Tea community… To bad there aren’t more verifiable sources out there. Anyway thanks for pointing me in the right direction.. I’ll keep drinking great teas regardless of how old they apparently are.

Unfortunately the way they verify the age of ancient trees in China is by estimating by size of trunk and height. This, however can be inaccurate in the least. The only real way to verify age is to take a core sample. But the people who own these ancient trees probably don’t want to do this for fear their 1600 year old tree will be proven a 600 year old tree that has grown really fast.

I created this thread to get any feedback on Tiger Spirit and any other of the pu-erh teas sold by Mei Leaf. There has been a little response. I’m curious to hear Mrmopar’s review.
I value your question to Don and also your counter argument which you strive to achieve.

I’m mindful that I haven’t posted proper tastings. I have Tiger Spirit, Sacred Owl, cone bandit and bloom buster. I have been drinking “known” gushus in my collection for the past 10 days or so to try and improve my experience. I’m fairly new to sheng and I feel I need a deeper reference pool before posting proper tasting notes/reviews. I must say, I’m enjoying the tiger spirit. Cone bandit and bloom buster really made the sides of my tongue react (in a very interesting way) felt like I had rubbed essential oils along the side of my tongue. Plus, this topic has become rather controversial and I’m keen not to be too involved just because I happen to have a cake of each. But whilst ignoring the tree date claims, I’ll post tasting notes at some point.

Hey guys my apologies. I wasn’t aware that tree dating was such a charged topic. I’ll bow out and let you guys speak more about the tea. I guess it is sort of an esoteric market and harder to verify than you would think. Thanks for allowing me a platform to ask some questions. Tea on my friends. Farewell.

I would be willing to bet that Tiger Spirit is good tea, I just would wager a lot more money that it is not from trees anywhere near 1600 years old. I really don’t think Don could obtain the maocha from such old trees for such a price and that is only one point of many.

I’m not sure why you’re refusing to grasp what Bef and Dongbei have been saying and insist that they’re being patronizing. They’re not. The burden of proof of a fantastic claim is on the person making the claim.

In this case, we have many tea vendors making the fantastic claim that their tea is from trees that are over a millennia old (incredible!) without offering any substantial proof. We also have many trusted vendors saying “I have been to Yunnan and have seen the tea markets throughout the province. These claims are farfetched and require great proof to back them up” (paraphrased). It now comes to weighing the two sides of the claim and deciding which is more likely to be true. (This is ignoring the fact that proving a tea’s provenance is extremely difficult with the current state of the industry, which is another big topic that has been written about extensively by other people more qualified than me such as on 2Dog’s blog).

If we go to the example of Santa Claus, it’s similar. Many parents (a trusted authority) tell their children that Santa Claus is real and brings presents to children using magic and elves (incredible!) without offering any substantial proof. When we grow up our peers say that it isn’t possible because magic doesn’t exist and maybe they’ve caught their parents putting the presents under the tree. Weighing the two sides of the claim, most come to the conclusion that Santa isn’t real.

What you’re asking is for someone to prove it’s impossible to source Gushu tea at the price Don is offering it, just like asking someone to prove it’s impossible for Santa to exist. We can’t do either, but thinking about it logically it’s far more likely that neither of the fantastic claims are true.

Thanks Sirturtletheknight…
First off I told the starter of this thread I would get off and let everyone continue their tasting notes but I will quickly respond to your observations.. I think everyone here is unfortunately missing my point.. I’m simply asking does anyone have any evidence about Ancient trees and everyone’s response is “come on man don’t you get it that’s impossible” which that’s all fine and well I get everyone’s logic but how bout instead saying hey Phil actually no I don’t have any links for you to prove anything.. I get it Verdant and MeiLeif aren’t credible in the Tea community I don’t really care because I I buy most of my tea from websites like Yunnan Sourcing anyway, my point is literally just for trying to underst ancient trees and almost everyone is like “come on man don’t you get it these vendors aren’t credible” and then I’m like ummmm so I asked a question about Gushu do you have any links about then if not simply say hey no actually I don’t. it’s no biggie if you don’t have all the links I’m just simply asking a question, and trying my best to research a market.. I guess everyone for some reason assumes I’m validating Mei Leaf or something which is just silly… I’m literally asking a simple question hey.. Does anyone here actually buy tea from verified sources or as Bef said Below maybe “its better for the tea market for sellers not to verify claims….” kind of a valid question.. But I guess what people are pointing at is that hey Phil if you were in the Tea game long enough you would know it’s more about reputation than anyone going to Yunnan and scientifically verifying their claims… interesting to me that’s all.

I gave you links. Are they not satisfactory?

Yes DongBei they were… I responded to this up above just scroll up to see.. thanks again for being the only one to actually take my question seriously and lead me to a source or two..

Can you read Chinese?

Wei, check out the links below. If you know of some better Chinese tea sites please let me know I’m always looking for good reading material. Where does your family live/work?

“steepster sometimes seems to be more of a battle of the Tea Shops” I have not gotten that impression about Steepster

Me either. I guess he’s relatively new and a bit upset that people are questioning a tea seller he likes? Just a guess.

I hope we will all learn to be members here and grow from what each of us knows.

Hook a brother up with some nice Taiwan oolongs ;) I’m not too far away here in the mainland. Do you live in the states?

Also, I just skimmed that article. Very interesting. Can anyone confirm if these numbers are right? If so, there is a tiny amount of real gushu on the market. This output is incredibly low!

1.倚帮曼松茶区王子山：不到40棵树

2.布朗茶区章家三堆：不到20棵树

3.易武茶区麻黑：一季度头春前两采总量不到80公斤

4.临沧茶区滨岛：一季度头春前两采总量不到50公斤

5.布朗茶区老班章：超过1000棵树，国家公布的数据是一年3季产80吨以上的毛茶。但80吨和1000棵树对比，水份较大

6.布朗茶区新班章：具茶农透露新班章没有古树茶（待考）

7.勐宋茶区纳卡：不到200公斤

Wei, no I don’t agree with that. I don’t think it’s that simple to tell gushu, pesticide/fertilizer use, hand-processed, etc just from Kougan. It can be a good indicator though! What do you think? I’m a relative puer newbie. I personally prefer hongcha ;)

Because you need to know Chinese to be able to access resources like this: http://www.puercn.com/puerchanews/news/103124.html

I’ll translate the important parts for you.

困鹿山位于宁洱哈尼族彝族自治县宽宏村，距县城38公里。困鹿山古茶园里，有400至500余年的栽培型古树茶421棵。

**Kunlu mountain is in the Ningpu Hani ethnic minority and Yi ethnic minority group autonomous county, Kuanchong village, 38 kilometers outside of the county township. Kunlu mountain’s ancient tree tea garden has 421 400-500 year old cultivated (not wild) trees.

　　“我家有5棵古树茶，去年春茶鲜叶每公斤卖1300元，今年的价格上涨了不少，我家的鲜叶价格每公斤卖到了1800元。”当地茶农谢永军告诉记者，4公斤鲜叶能加工出1公斤干毛茶，这样算下来，去年干毛茶每公斤为5200元，而今年则达到了7200元。而在十几年前，当地的茶叶价格仅四五元一公斤。

**"Our family has 5 ancient trees. Last spring fresh tea leaves sold for 1300 RMB per kilogram. This year the price went up quite a bit. The price for my family’s fresh leaves was 1800 RMB per kilogram." Local tea farmer Xie Yongjun told the reporter, 4 kilograms of fresh tea leaves can be made into 1 kilogram of dry mao cha, according to this, last year’s dry mao cha was 5200 RMB per kilogram, furthermore this year’s thus reached 7200 RMB [per kilogram]. Furthermore, ten years previously, local tea prices were only 400-500 RMB per kilogram.

There you go. Happy? Those are 400-500 year old trees in one village. I’m not going to translate more for you (not for free at least ;)) but there is a ton of this info out there. Look it up yourself. Mandarin is a lot of fun to study :)

Excellent! One piece of decent evidence. This appears to me to be locals talking about their crop and the Tea market in their area thank you.. I’ll have to research this further.. I do hope there are some resources in English though to verify the important questions and claims above though. I have a feeling it would take me a while to learn Mandarin haha ;) thanks again DongBei farewell for now.

Here’s a price list for 2016 raw material: http://www.puercn.com/puerchanews/news/102629.html

Note, this is raw material (unless it says 毛料 or 干茶). That means you’ll have to use several kg of the stuff to even make it to one kg of mao cha.

For instance, it lists Bingdao ancient tree material at 3000-8000 rmb per kilo. That’s not even mao cha prices! Nor its it claiming those trees are thousands of years old.

To clarify: http://www.puercn.com/puerchanews/news/97840.html

既然这些价格都是真实的，那么就拿老班章和冰岛的茶价来说，2015年陈升号收购最好的春茶老班章价格是3000元/kg。而市场上茶商普遍报价是5500左右/kg。而2015年冰岛春茶市场上普遍报价是6000元/kg，少部分茶商报价是2万元/kg。

If 2015 Bingdao price list said it was 6000 rmb/kg for spring raw material, then what little actually makes it to the tea market would be around 20,000 rmb/kg. The other example is LBZ, the best of which was bought up in 2015 by Chenshenghao for 3000 rmb/kg, then the normal price on the market was 5500 rmb/kg.

Try to not let this all bother you. Drinking puerh is a journey. Nobody knows it all at the beginning of their journey nor do they know it all at the end.

My advice is to learn at your pace and drink at your pace too. I also recommended trusting wisdom of daily drinkers who have been at this for some time; mrmopar, cywn, marshlan, 2dog, Scott Wilson, teadb… and the list goes on.

Enjoy your journey. Will you walk into a dead end, stumble on a stick, or trip on a rock, sure but it doesn’t mean that you won’t learn from it and carry on. The evidence you look for on both sides is very hard to come across because it deals with speculations/beliefs as well as much translation.

Walk, do not run.

Well said Liquid Proust.
I like the way you put that. I’ve read some of your other threads and it’s always like reading a Chinese poem haha. I appreciate your point of view.
I’ll continue to search and hope to find some answers But absolutely all in all Tea is a great drink and has so many enjoyable facets.
I’m off for now but I hope you’ll chime in later. I’m interested in finding out more about the local culture there in Yunnan and answering some of the questions above.

Always keep learning :)

I have been into puerh for two years and I just now am investing in humid storage.

I find that when people go 110% into something they are overwhelmed and easily burned out too quickly. With tea it’s easy to have 100 samples pile up when yoh start out, but then you’re left with this while concept of keeping busy that you don’t enjoy it as much as you once did; not true for all of course.

As someone who loves philosophy, I’ve learned the hard way that it takes time to really grasp knowledge and then apply experience to it so you have wisdom. Puerh is no different. I do my best to remember this so I don’t feel bad when I realize I haven’t read all the last 20 years of puerh blogging or haven’t tried 60s raw opposed to 90s raw.

When someone has an experience you want or information you’ve yet to aquire, try to remind yourself that your journey is different and if you want those things that is possible.

I try not to chime into these conversations because I want only positive vibes, yet this is an important issue because I never want false information to be like politics in the sense that it is used for monetary gain.

Also, it’s not always the most expensive that is the best nor is the cheapest the worst. I can send you some top notch 2016 raw and you would be shocked to know how affordable it is; oh how I love me some Lazers

We might actually be doing better without vendors trying to prove their ridiculous claims. Just look at the latest posts and videos from Verdant, where they show the actual GPS coordinates of the damn tree and a video where they kind of interrogate “Master” Zhou about all their claims. This is just making things more easy to people who are trying really hard to believe these claims.

Verdant is not a seller I trust when it comes to claims about their puerh’s tree age. Why don’t these sellers just say they have really good puerh and leave tree age, which can never be proven out of it completely.

Well that’s two vendors now on the ‘do not buy’ list, not that I ever buy from tea vendors stateside or in the UK!

AllanK, are you really wondering why they are making ridiculous claims? Everytime a vendor makes ridiculous claims, his product gets sold out 2 days after it gets posted on Steepster.

Agreed. I think it’s mostly a matter of culture clash and confirmation bias when it comes to the diehard believers..

I have heard online that he has a very busy tea shop. You don’t have a busy tea shop if you sell bad tea because people will tend not to come back. So I have suspected all along that he sells good tea I just don’t believe his tree is from 1600 year old trees because he says so. Basically the only “proof” he has is he says they are from 1600 year old trees. And it is likely coincidence that he sold out two days after this discussion appeared. I don’t think he has too many believers here. He may be able to convince people in store if the tea is simply very good. For the price he is getting it should be very good sheng, I just don’t believe for a heartbeat that it is from the time of the Roman Empire.

http://verdanttea.com/teas/qianjiazhai-2016-single-tree-sheng-puer-1300-year-tea-tree/ —> “The tree can be found at 24°16’13.6″N 101°12’19.6″E, at just over 2000 meters.”

There is also a video on their Youtube channel, in which where they interrogate Master Zhou, and he’s telling them whatever they want to ear. He has an interesting smile and expression while he’s replying, and he seems to be thinking “stupid laowai…”

Here’s the funny video with Master Zhou responding to laowai: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgCE93xHjnM

Yeah that video you linked did not fill me with any confidence at all. Especially with that second dude behind him kinda/sorta agreeing with him.

“Master Zhou did NOT say in anywhere that the expensive leaves they harvested from these old trees are used for making the teas/cakes offered to verdant.”
Good point!