> What's really interesting about what you report is that they dropped the
> price because the leaf was less good. In the happy world of Pu'erh,
> I'm given to understand, the quality can fall through the floor, but the
> proce will forever rise. No price drops reflecting poor quality leaf to be
> seen. Sounds as though with TGY there's some integrity somewhere.

It's all markets. It has little to do with integrity; I mean, you go
to shop, they will still try to tell you their tea is perfect and would
be happy to part with 1500-2000 for their rubbish tea. I got a couple
of good pals at market that usually tell me the approximate pricing
schemes for each season but that doesn't mean it's set in stone.

Anyway, the weather was wretched this year for mainland Wulongs. They
had a horrible dry spell during a very important time followed by days,
weeks, and months of rain. Not enough sunlight or too much sunlight
can ruin a crop. These things sorta determine the prices, not to
mention the sheer volume of tea produced. This year, not as much of
the higher quality stuff was produced so the costs are much lower.

With pu'er they are using leaves of all qualities to produce tea to fit
demand. We discussed this earlier: the 2005-2006 pu'er is much lower
quality than previous years because too many people are buying up all
the reserves. It's the 2003 stuff and back that's going to tell the
tale.