Same cooked (ripe) puerh, but different year. Is there a difference?

I couldn’t find reviews on both of these teas.
I might just order one of each and try them both out.

Thanks for your reply :).

Some of them come in paper, some in boxes. Perhaps that can explain at least some of it.
Some seem to have stamps or some kind of indentation while others don’t. Maybe they were re-branded? Just speculating.
The 2001 one is pretty close to being a naturally aged ripe puerh cake. I think that naturally ripened puerh is always more expensive than ‘cooked’ puerh.

Thanks, Dxniel.

Now that you mention it, I notice how some are ‘stamped’, or whatever you call it, and some are not; interesting.

I was surprised at how much more in price the 2001 is; the description also states “Excellent dry storage, rare.” Which makes me think storage may be one of the reasons some older ones are cheaper than the younger ones. That then makes me wonder, if some say they are stored well, and some don’t, does that mean the ones that don’t list anything about storage necessarily mean they weren’t stored well? I think that is an interesting question; and that is why the more information they provide about the tea, (including storage) the better. And, just because they state that the storage is excellent, or even good, doesn’t necessarily mean it is true; that is where trust in the vendor comes in.

I just sent them a message asking them why some older puerh cakes are cheaper than some of the younger ones.

Awesome! I’d love to hear their response, and hopefully it’s not, ‘Ooops, we should be charging more for the older stuff’!

The reason some of the younger ones are cheaper might be because there is a group of people that like to drink very young puerh teas as opposed to puerh that is a few years old. Maybe when the puerh is fresh it is relatively high in price, but the price decreases with time when the puerh is neither very young or old, but starts increasing again once it is starting to near it’s ripe stage.

I was also thinking that the reason might simply be a mistake. Maybe they had difficulty keeping track of price/age consistency.

I have seen some tea samples being sold for a relatively cheaper price than if you’d buy 100g of the tea. So you’d be better off buying 100g worth of samples than you would if you were to place an order for 100g of tea.
So it might just be a mistake.

We’ll see. I’ll let you know what Dragon Tea House’ has to say about this question once they send me a reply.

By the way, I forgot to mention…
If you’re going to order from dragonteahouse.biz, you might want to consider creating an account. When you have an account, everything is a bit cheaper (probably by 10% or so). Like the 2001 puerh that costs $59.99 would only cost $53.99 when logged on an account.

Oh, that’s cool. : )

I already ordered, and I did create an account, but I didn’t get any discount.

I just tried adding something to my cart, while logged in, and even before the final process of checking out I didn’t see any discount. Is there a code or something you have to enter to get a discount with an account?

You can compare the prices when you log on and off. You’ll see that the prices drop by about 10%. I don’t think they show you in the cart like you might expect. Things just simply cost less when signed in.
Try adding those items to your cart when you’re not signed on your account. It will probably cost more.

I received their reply. They gave me a very short, straight-forward answer.
“Vintage is not the only factor that decide price. Market supply, storage, promotion will affect price too.”

Thanks for providing their reply.

Thanks, boychik.

Interesting about the price increase on mao cha.

How do you know if a harvest is a good one or not?

I dont ;)

But they do, probably based on sampling and reviews, and demand

http://www.marshaln.com/2014/06/price-dislocation/

I read the post and the replies; it was interesting and informative.

Thank you.