>I bought some puer in Kunming (capital of Yunnan) last week when I was
>there with my family. The guy poured my some and it was the most
>delicious puer I have ever had, though certainly I'm not the most
>experienced drinker. Anyway the guy said it was seven years old, and it
>tasted very floral. However the sample wasn't from the cake I bought,
>and not speaking Chinese it seems there isn't really any way to tell if
>I got ripped off or not. Later on I showed it to a guy who spoke
>Chinese, and he said that it didn't say the age on it so it was
>unlikely to actually be that old.

Sorry, forgot to quote:

You did buy real pu'er, but it is impossible that it is 7 years old if
you only paid 70RMB for it. No matter what shop/factory you go to,
unless you know the people there, they will always lie and say that
their pu'er is old. I frequent the Fangcun tea market in Guangzhou,
basically to drink tea for free and see if I can find a good deal, and
I very often drink "20 year old" pu'er...you can easily find such "20
year old" pu'er by going to a new shop. Chances are that you bought a
2004 or 2005 bing that's probably worth 5-15 yuan for 70; not that big
of a deal. If it is really Menghai, it would be a little more
expensive. Hell, at least you didn't pay like 100 bucks for it.


Or, the other old trick in the book is to have the sample that's good
quality or a little old and then the sell the buyer a different tea.
It has been said that even many shop bosses themselves have never drank

real aged pu'er before or wouldn't know the difference if they did.
It's hard to find real aged pu'er.


As for your description of the pu'er being "floral," I'm not sure what
to make of that. Most pu'er is rather earthy; some describe it as a
dirty flavor. Regardless of age, grade, or whatever else denotation
tea is classified by, if you think the taste is good, consider it a
good buy for 70 kuai.