Mei Leaf / Chinalife - 1600 Year old Pu-erh
I’ve tried a number of the Farmerleaf teas (and reviewed them, sort of my thing, just in a blog instead of here). To me they’re good. He just did another video on aging sheng pu’er that was nice too, not focused on how, but what is going on with it. That one video on fake teas (or tea-purchasing concerns, however that’s framed) is nice but not as substantial as it seems at first. He basically just talks through that some people sell tea as something it’s not, with specifics related to some generalities, but not really linked to how to get around it, or what to watch out for, except related to some obvious issues, about cases of people saying things that don’t make sense.
He’s not exactly a farmer, although they do produce tea. His wife is from there (Yunnan), and they buy fresh leaves and process pu’er, per my understanding. I did an interview post with him last year, and have reviewed plenty of his products in my blog as well. As far me saying their teas are good, good is relative, and subjective, but it’s easy enough to look around and catch a few other people’s takes on that. They sell samples and that’s probably a more sure route to figuring out what you think instead, trying some of their teas.
http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2017/04/interview-with-william-osmont-of.html
What don’t you just copy then paste the text from the blog here (or a short version of it or your conclusion) so others may benefit from it.
It’s a full page of text interview; it seemed like if others are interested they could click the link to read it, or not. It’s just background about him and his business, so sort of a tangent related to more details about specific teas. This part is an exception (and one following on what indicates sheng that will age well):
Can you share a short summary of the character differences in teas within different pu’er producing areas?
Pu-erh tea features a wide range of tasting profiles. That diversity is due to differences in aging, processing and producing area. Just like the terroirs of wine, tea tastes different according to the genetics, location and management techniques of the tea gardens. It would take a whole book to detail the subtle variations between each mountain and their underlying factors.
Jingmai is famous in the world of tea for its orchid and honey fragrance. Some bitterness is present; astringency is more present than average. In young teas, the mouth feel is generally light and sweet. The Jingmai profile is accessible to the beginners and makes a great introduction to the world of Pu-erh tea because it has a bit of everything. In comparison, Bulang tea is generally more aggressive, featuring more bitterness; Yiwu tea is soft and mellow, with a thick mouth feel. Menkgu is renowned for its complex fragrance and sharp sweetness.
However, there are many exceptions in each terroirs, and the result in the cup can be very different depending on the processing. In Jingmai, old-growth tea that received a high-temperature kill-green process will feature the typical high-pitched orchid fragrance, with fast-changing bitterness and a light body; while tea that went through a low temperature kill-green process will have a thicker body, more sweetness and a honey-like aroma. There’s a lot of possibilities in-between.
Some tea gardens are known to produce more bitter leaves, while others grow particularly fragrant leaves. It is indirectly influenced by the soil type, garden design and agricultural techniques. For example, tea that grows on sandy soil will receive less water and nutrients than tea grown on clay soil, and that will influence the physiology of the tea tree and therefore the taste of its leaves.
I meant your reviews of their teas (not in this thread, but on this site), but thank you for posting this too, I’m sure it will be convenient for some. I’m going to read the blog post too and then watch their latest video.
The reason I like the fake tea video isn’t that he gives things to look out for and ways it can be fixed, but explains why and when it happens, and that it’s bad, but maybe it’s not that big of a deal. My summary would be: fake tea is often not about selling bad tea at an inflated price, which is the impression that people get when they hear “fake tea”. Regardless of the stories being told, it seems like most parts of the tea market are selling accurately priced tea
I wouldn’t blame Mei Leaf owner for tagging his teas like 400y old Lao Man E or something. He just doesn’t know the current situation about those kind of teas here in Yunnan. If you live somewhere in London and come to Yunnan once or twice a year, of course you get cheated. Specially if buy this tea not on farm but on some tea market or even worse – shipped over from China by “reliable” source:-)
Particularly 2017 spring wasn’t available coz sold to LBZ tea farmers. Kunming vendors who have been doing LME for many years had to go on fake one last year, which is Bang Peng village stuff. You can’t expect someone who lives outside to know these things. But after being hit by 1600 Bing Dao should be more careful with ages at least. Just simply check statistics how many over 300y old tea trees are in Yunnan and think how many rich “tu hao” Chinese pu-erh tea drinkers are here :-) simple math :-)
Anyway, please note that I’m just sharing my knowledge and assumptions based on being actually on field , so do not take this as an accusation just as an opinion. Thanks for understanding.
I had definitely considered the idea that he was fooled by someone and actually believed he was selling tea from 1600 year old trees. This is however only marginally better than him lying outright.
as a relatively frequent mei leaf purchaser i generally believe don knows when he’s using bad numbers but you’re right your 400 year old example is maybe simple ignorance.
well , the problem is , that normally foreigners coming here don’t get in touch with actually high ranked tea ( old tea , old tree tea ..etc. ). They get offered something what is most profitable for vendor to sell and not easy to sell for them in such a competitive CN tea market. 300y+ Gu Shu can sell to anybody here for much higher price then what average foreigner would be willing to pay for. I’ve been around KM tea markets quite a while and when I enter to shop where they don’t know me yet , I have to spend at least 1h of drinking their cheap stuff, talking about tea biz ( in Chinese ) if boss around , to convince him that I came for chat not for buying a tea. Then he/she will pull out something nice from the private stash.
I doubt if somebody comes here from outside ,even with CN translator , would get a same treat. Not even local people. I was witnessing few of those “tea business” sessions , when customers from RUS, US etc. came over. Same old story. Tboss “sings old song” : 1) Our stuff is real. 2) We have good relation with tea farmers so price is low. 2) If we say tea is Bing Dao , so it is Bing Dao. 3) We guarantee fair prices all the time 4) we don’t sell bush tea , only arbor and Gu shu 6) everything is organic…etc. blablabla. Then they invite you for lunch or dinner. Take some pictures and post on their wechat saying: we have foreign customers , we are international…blablabla.
So unfortunately it is still up to buyer to decide who to trust and it’s more and more commonly known the golden rule: Don’t believe the wrapper, buy a sample and decide if price match to your taste preference.
Gu Shu fever spread quickly out of China without even understanding real old tree potential and taste. Most people don’t even know that younger tea leafs have much more nutrition than the old ones …which is even logical. Most of people wouldn’t even distinguish small arbor material from 400y old gu shu by taste. Yet , it works well for the marketing and you will find pressed Bai Cha in 200g cake called 400y Sheng pu-erh Bing Dao for 15$ incl. shipping fee to US.
So I’m not trying to excuse this behavior and I completely do not agree with this , but if that works out for their biz. u can’t fight it. Just choose not to buy it, someone else will.
Again, unfortunately it’s up to the buyer to distinguish between tea lover and tea businessman …in China these are 2 different people. And I can tell you from my experience , not many tea lovers are around here coz simply difficult to make money for living from this. China is not cheap anymore and particularly last 2-3y were hard, pu-erh prices gone up 2-4times , many people closed down, many choose go for cheaper material , mixing, faking etc.
Long story, not related to this topic…sorry going off the thread.
100% accurate ^
I was offered mediocre tai di stuff in Kunming and told it was gushu. I tried not to laugh too hard. :/ It is both humorous and frustrating at the same time when I get a spiel like that.
yeah i think you’re really spot on, alex.
like i said above, i like mei leaf’s tea and buy from there occasionally, but Don Mei’s dad was famous or something, a big deal in exporting tea and Chinese medicine and practices like acupuncture from china to europe, so maybe he does have the connections to know better. but like you said, if you dont like it dont buy it
i think something else worth noting is that, armed with knowledge, you can learn something about a tea even when it’s being lied about. not an excuse for the liars, but an incentive to learn as much about tea as we can
I agree. It was his videos that got me into gong fu style brewing, and his basics are great, but now I’m on multiple fora, podcasts, and YouTube channels and learned a lot from different sources. I have also ordered from multiple sources and webshops within Europe since. Most of my orders and spending, by far, has not gone to them. And other than maybe teaware or some discount I don’s see myself ordering there (much) in the future. There are just too many shops and alternatives. In fact, after the many hundreds of grams of tea I have start shrinking significantly I think I will be ordering internationally to get some puerh from China from one of the well-known vendors with a good reputation.
you bring up a good point about learning from other sources: worse than any lie about puerh he could ever tell, the real worst thing don mei has done is tell people 10 infusions is the high end of infusion numbers. i dont think that’s a lie, or ignorance. maybe ignorance. i think its just personal taste, really, but its a bad habit to impart to his audience.
i dont think i would do anything like not buy from there, though. shipping costs make it relatively prohibitive but they have some of the most flavorful oolongs out there.
Do you know if he was talking about tea in general, only puerh, or all teas BUT puerh?
i think he was talking about tea in general. all the teas on his site have infusion recommendations. actually, i am right now on the 14th infusion of mei leaf’s Alishan Cream, which recommends 8 infusions.
the highest infusion recommendation i’ve ever seen on their site was a puerh that recommended 15 infusions.
It is nice the way this topic spins on into more detail about fake pu’er. I just saw a decent Farmerleaf Youtube video on this, but it was probably slightly less specific than these last two paragraphs, just talking around how and why pu’er is sold as something it’s not. The short version is completely obvious: a vendor can charge more based on false marketing, or maybe at least make a low revenue sale on a very low cost product, and it’s not always the case that the final sales point vendor is the one who first mis-represented what’s being passed down a supply chain.
To rejoin beating up Mei Leaf (which seems to never get old), I think AllanK nailed it: if a vendor makes one of these obviously false claims they’re either lying or not trustworthy to identify even the most basic truths on their own. Even lies should be marginally plausible, or it’s insulting. $20-50 gushu cakes or 1000+ year old tea tree claims have been clearly identified as nonsense, perhaps ad nauseum at this point, since this is now a few rounds in. As plain as that already is you might still run across the occasional online question about if a $15 LBZ cake could actually be real.
And that cheap LBZ cake is probably aged too. I bought a real LBZ ripe from Yunnan Sourcing late last year. I got it at 15% off because of a sale but he was getting $700 for it. It was made by Hai Lang Hao so I can be sure he wasn’t fooled into buying a fake. It also went 34 steeps.
Just in case anyone is interested, Don made a statement about Tiger Spirit back in March 2017 after being told by clients of discussions on tea forums about the 1600 year old trees in it.
https://meileaf.com/article/drinking-puerh-from-1600-year-old-tea-trees/
It doesn’t work at all to say that the tea tastes like it must come from old plants (that response). A 1600 year old source plant age claim is absurd, so it’s beside the point. If Don doesn’t want to follow online discussion or references about tea plant age (as mentioned) that type of age description shouldn’t find its way into marketing content. I don’t see these comments as blaming or judging, but as neutral. It doesn’t help any vendor to make obviously false claims. It’s almost not even about misleading customers at that point. Then people are forced to guess, is this a lie, or don’t they keep up? It’s not a good question to have potential customers consider.
This video I just stumbled upon, and it may not be 100% related (there is a tea scam as well though), but I think most will find this video to be very interesting, especially the mindset behind the scammers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ncOyYzOP3w&list=PLnomKWGvsVJ3QKGC4PUxwRlIAbXl_HJOG&index=13
Btw he has a whole playlist on scams, but most of his videos are not related to scamming and like he said, in general, China is wonderful and full of friendly and hospitable people.
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