Dear Friends,

I have learned from this estimated group, among others from Mike Petro's
excellent postings, that there have not been any black/shu puerhs prior to
1973, when the Kunming Tea Factory made the first test production of black
puerh.

Therefore I got very surprised when a friend of mine arrived from China with
a quite expensive ($500) brick of black/shu puerh. The seller of the brick,
a native Chinese and a long-time business partner of her stated that this
shu puerh was from 1970. She said that he even showed her some kind of
certificate of authenticity (which she anyway could not verify as she does
not know any Chinese).

I am wondering what kind of puerh did she buy. Did she get screwed, or is it
some kind of real rarity? Is it a cooked/shu puerh at all? Please take a
look of these pictures, and if you have any clues about the age, type and
factory of this brick, please share it with me! You can see the pictures
he

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...u_brick_01.jpg
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...u_brick_02.jpg

Unfortunately this is the highest resolution Photobucket allows to upload.
If anyone would like to see the pictures in a higher resolution whith a
readable text, let me know, and I can mail it to anyone.

Thank you for your help,
Gyorgy