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Austin Hodge
 
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Mike is absolutely right. Don't expect to see good prices for authentic
puer going into the future. The rest of China has discovered puer, and
there are high prices being asked in Bejing and Shanghai now, where as
in the past, demand had been limited in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and
Guangzhou. There are numberous buyers trying to buy up all of the
available puer stores. The Chinese universally agree that puer is a
good investment. There is plenty enough fraud involved in this market
and there has been since the end of the cultural revolution when having
destroyed most old cakes, a thriving market in old puer emerged. Since
the government was the major puer producer, and still is by the way,
the corruption was supported by the law in Yunnan, where it was illegal
to publish a date on any puer on the market. Buyer beware indeed.
People who are collectors do thier homework, and there are recognized
dealers that offer verification of date. This verification is only
valid within a couple of years one way or the other, and involves
examination of the cake, color, smell, and taste. Color, taste, and
smell can not be faked. What the market will bare is the rule. There
are plenty of people that will spend high prices and never blink an eye
about it. The good news is that standards have been established for
puer now, and you don't have to be an expert to sort through these, and
that newly produced puer is very good. It takes about 5 or 6 years for
raw puer to darken and mellow, but there are plenty of people that
enjoy it young, green, and a little bit bitter. Puer is certainly an
obsession, and one that I must admit to having too. If you see some
cheap puer laying around in some store somewhere, and it is still
cheap, I'd recommend buying it up and hang on to it.
I wanted to say also that the assertion that it is healther to brew tea
in one way or another is bizzarre. There is an enormous amount of
research being carried out in the US alone with extremely positive
results. The tea is donated and is not really worth drinking and those
folks doing the testing have never even heard of Yixing.