> I'm sure some of the claims are true but to what extent? *The claims
> are 1) too much pesticides used on pu-erh 2) much pu-erh is claimed to
> be from ancient trees but isn't 3) pu-erh is frequently not as aged as
> claimed. *Thoughts everyone?


Let's put it this way, if there's a demand, people will "create" a
supply for it. If there's big dollars to be easily made, then people
will devise ways to get that money into their hands. So,if there's a
demand for say, ancient tea tree puer, then, surely enough, there will
be a large supply of it. That means, they will intentionally mis-label
the product, produce it in large quantity (using pesticides and
fertilizers) and use other methods to fool the customer into thinking
it's ancient tea tree puer; and to ensure there's a large enough
supply to meet the demand. That's how money is made, unfortunately.