Dear Greg -

It would be real nice if you read the posts of others with proper attention
and respect. Michael Plant, who I have an honor to know personally is a
very knowledgable and nice gentleman, most probably old enough to be your
father. In his post he was talking about paying in extent of $1,000 for puer
CAKE, not Keemun. But even if he meant Keemun, it does not warrant your rude
"You are crazy" remark. I think you owe him an apology.
We always hear that argument from our Chinese friends about them or their
parents being tea merchants or tea growers. Same way we were always hearing
from our Iranian friends that they are Shah's Pehlevi relatives. That may be
so, but we would prefer arguments that can be substantiated in some
verifiable way. You also should get yourself familiar with tea terminology
commonly accepted in the English-speaking world before you make statements
that there is no such thing as "raw pu-erh", because this is how Sheng
(ShengRi de Sheng) is translated into English, together with "live,
uncooked, green", as opposed to Shu (ChengShu de Shu) "ripe, cooked, done".
Many participants on this forum (present party excluded) have live-long
connections with tea businesses in China, many have friends who own and run
teahouses in HongKong, Taiwan and here in Chinatowns on both coasts. Some of
us studied China and its languages and cultures, including tea, for many,
many years. Please, do not call us "crazy".
The "Tea University" is very much an "introduction" site. In case of pu-erh
I very much recommend you to take a look at Mike Petro site
http://www.pu-erh.net - not everything is on the surface and you have to dig
around there, but its well worth it.

Sasha.



> wrote in message
oups.com...
> Are you crazy. Why would anyone wants to pay so much. My family has
> operated a leading tea plantation in China for many generations, and
> yes Keemun is an excellent tea by itself or mix with Ceylon and other
> Indian teas to make the famous "English Breakfast Tea". Keemun is
> rarely found in cake forms. Tea is such an individual think, if you
> like it aged, go for it., but I would not pay anything over $100.
> Actually I do have a number of authentic keemun tea dating back to the
> 1940s, 50s, and 60s. It is something that we put on display. I never
> had any plans of consuming it because I don't think it would taste any
> good.
>
> Greg
>