Need help -quick survey - How much would you pay for the real Dragon Well?
Hi everybody,
I’m just wondering how much would you pay for the real Mingqian Long Jing (Dragon Well). I’m a Chinese tea vendor and we specialise in authentic Chinese tea. As the price of the real Long Jing is going higher and higher, I have paused Long Jing from our North America catalogue for the past two years. But every now and then there are people asking about high quality Long Jing, and now this is the prime time for getting it. I’m just wondering if it’s worth it to get some for here. My instinct is no because the price is too high… I don’t think I can sell even one bag…
I would appreciate it if you could give me a vague price range. Thank you.
Zhen
Just how high is the price you have to charge?
$150ish for 50g at the lowest, but I need to calculate the cost a bit more. Anyways, I think I’ll pass for now. I don’t think people would be interested.
Yeah I don’t think I would be willing to pay that much for Long Jing. Aren’t there cheaper Long Jing that you could carry?
Of course, I fully understand. It’s just sometimes I think there might be people who want to taste the real good ones. I’ll wait and see. With Long Jing, a lot of the time when the price is right, the quality is not there. The price only reflects its reputation… Worst cause I’ll pause it for another year.
It is possible some people would be willing to pay that much, but I personally think even great tea isn’t worth that much when there are lots of great teas I enjoy for cheaper prices. I can’t imagine most people would be willing to pay what that tea is worth, but I’m also not a green tea drinker, so I’m probably not much help. I think most people would rather stick to the cheaper stuff, even if it in’t as good quality.
A quick search around the internet showed prices of 10-25$ for ounce/25 grams. And this is from high quality reputable sellers, who are known for having quality tea.
The thing is, I think with the ‘famous’ Chinese teas like the ‘Real Long Jing’, the price does not always correlate directly with the flavour profile and its quality due to the bulk of the price coming from status-value e.g. Long Jing in China is used for cultural reasons, such as to indicate status. Whereas this is not the case in the Western culture, where a good quality tea will only be drunk for its flavour and quality, and thus the Western cunsumer is not generally prepared to pay for the status value.
I hope this makes sense!
Yulia X
This actually makes alot of sense, because Americans dont view tea for its status value, just its flavor, aroma, etc.
I agree with both of you. The western tea market is very different than the Chinese one and the culture, economy and market aspects do have a play in the tea price. Similar to $20 probably won’t get me a real leather jacket, real high quality Chinese tea doesn’t have a low price point. And of course, high price doesn’t guarantee anything either.
Whenever we do professional tastings or trainings, we always ask people to parallel taste several teas, same tea (or say same tea name just to be accurate) and same brewing but different grades. We ask them to separate what they like from what they think is a better tea, then share with the crowd which tea they like and why and which tea they think is higher quality and why. The interesting thing is that no matter who they are, tea sommelier/connoisseur or just a tea lover, most people pinpointed the best tea in the tasting without a problem. But the unfortunately fact is that these teas are usually more expensive. Haha! Anyways, I think finding the best value is what really matters. Choosing a acceptable price range is definitely a smart chose.
I agree with Yulia above. Taking the care to ensure the provenance of a tea as the “real” version speaks more to collectors and gift/status seekers. While the flavor may be better, it will be difficult to convince most people to buy something at 15x the price of what they normally buy.
This works better for things like pu’erh, since there is a market for collectors. A Dragonwell is not exactly collectible due to its relatively short life span.
In terms of gifting/status showing – this will be hard to find in the West. Very few people will give an expensive gift of tea, nor will many people show off with a fancy tea.
Anyway, best of luck! It certainly isn’t a bad thing to seek out true quality.
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