2016 Sheng Olympics (group buy)
Are you ready for the news?
You know what would make the 2016 Sheng Olympics better? Well, there are many answers… but today I am reporting that something has been added.
Everyone will be receiving around 12 grams of the 2005 2005 Changtai “Yun Pu Zhi Dian / Top of the Clouds” from Crimson Lotus Tea.
For those who are asking why, because Crimson Lotus Tea has donated two cakes to the 2016 Sheng Olympics!
http://crimsonlotustea.com/products/2005-changtai-yun-pu-zhi-dian-top-of-the-clouds-sheng-raw-bing-cake-250g
I’m pretty dang excited :)
I admit when I read " Are you ready…", the Sponge Bob theme song starting ringing in my head.
Edit: Oh wow, I didn’t read this well. Thank you for adding this to Olympics! Medals for you guys!
This Sheng Olympics thing is a super cool endeavor and we were happy to have some of our cakes included in it. Opportunities like this are of huge educational benefit to those involved and we wanted to help out by adding a bit more diversity to the selection. :-) I know first hand how much work LiquidProust has ahead of him getting all these cakes broken down and the packages ready for you and he deserves a lot of respect for handling this undertaking.
Thanks Crimson Lotus for the contribution and opportunity to try more. :)) Totally agree with you on how much work LP has ahead – we are so lucky to have a member here who would undertake such a task. Thanks LP for organizing and all the work that you are putting into it. I am absolutely/totally grateful for the opportunity to try this variety of sheng for the small cost. Great Job!!!!!
That is excellent news. Thank you and the company. First time I’ll be trying tea from them.
Wow! Great news! Thanks Crimson Lotus! And thanks LP for all your hard work organizing this.
While trying to learn more about puerh and hopefully find what type appeals.. I ran into this TeaDB video with Crimson Lotus talking about the sheng that they’ve donated! I thought it would be fun to share just incase some of you haven’t seen it. :D And it’s really cool to see who Glen and Lamu are! waves Thank you!
To prep for all of this new tea, is there are any resources you’d suggestion I read to familiarize myself with all the teas (aside from the shops themselves)?
Steepster has so many different threads on puer… I have enjoyed this here: http://hojotea.com/en/posts-38/
If you search, you will find that there is more information to read than you could read by time you get this :)
Sheng Olympics… whatever next? The Shu-Fu tournament? Miss Oolong 2016?
What’s next… though I know what it is, let me get through this and then I will make the announcement :)
Really great to hear about the surprise from CLT.
LP: just wanted to let you know that I’d be willing to part with a slot for someone that was interested. :)
I think at this point I’m going to keep it where it is at. While I love having as many people as possible, I need to begin working on this soon because I have a good 20 to 30 hours ahead of me. The logistics of many things changed recently with the five new participates.
If a slot is needed to be opened I can, but I’d like to begin the number crunching and then onto the breaking, weighting, and labeling.
& so it begins!
Tonight I will label the bags with the share/slot number for each member and order the additional packaging :)
33 individuals x 17 teas = 561 weighted portions of sheng!
Looks like everyone will have paid $20 per share + shipping for 17 different teas totaling over 100g
I’ll still respond here, but my updates will be via pictures from here on out :)
After breaking up the 100g cakes from YS, https://www.instagram.com/p/BALrqVvxYOG/ , I realized that I dread breaking the Verdant cakes.
A puerh cake is going to present the breakee with 5% dust and 5% stuff nobody really wants. Now, that wasn’t an issue with the YS cakes because they are $8 for 100g (not pricey at all). On the other hand, these Verdant cakes were much more which makes me feel like crap to think that the portions are going to be around 3.5g when I said 4g (and that is the case with all the cakes)
I’m taking my time and being very careful with every step, but as the first Sheng Olympics this is the first error I have came across; my provided statistics for everyone. Trying to not beat myself up over this as I am aiming for 100% positive feedback along with the 100% success rate.
I have pictures being taken of the whole process before it gets to everyone and there will be quite a bit of photos when I am done; an album will be created on Imgur.
With a dedicated 20 to 30 hours to making sure everything goes right, please extend a little grace as this is my first sheng group buy.
This shall be my reminder to myself next year: Do not include multiple 100g cakes to split!
Anyways, $25’ish to join 32 different individuals on a sheng journey of 16 different sessions… I can’t say I know of a better tea deal currently.
I’m really looking forward to this.
p.s. https://www.instagram.com/p/BANv9I1xYLP/ came in the mail today and I took all the exterior material and packaged it all up for you; keeping the rock hard middles for myself which I will learn to make the best of.
Because you have to or because you want to?
Maybe it’s all in my head, but I thought people like as much full (er’ish – can be) leaf as they can get.
So… the beginning of spring for me is going to be full of beengholes. I’ll have some play on words with this!
So I’m doing it right :)
How does one forget the term ‘butthole’ when drinking from the beenghole?
I realized that when I did a small group buy with a YQH cake recently. I ended up with a whole lot of loose pu and dust after everyone got their portions. It wasn’t a big deal b/c it was a 500g cake there was only four of us, but I could see how trying to split a 100g cake between 20 some odd people might be a bit more dodgy!
@curlygc 500g would be quite nice to split :) , these 100g cakes have a core that is 20 to 25 grams…. tricky work.
@Rasseru I’m working on keeping everyone within .5 grams on the portions
@Rich … everyone shall get the full experience unless they don’t want it; do you not want it?
@Rich I think the main issue is that everyone will be at 3.5 to 3.7 grams and I’m trying not to ask the ‘who is okay with 3g’ (though I have some 2013 wild to place it with)
We shall see when I get there :)
It’ll be a challenge and I enjoy a good challenge.
Forgot about my quarterly bonus… since it’s unaccounted funds, I will take whatever is left from the labels, ink, bubble wrap, poly mailers, and containers and put it towards a ‘surprise’ for everyone!
With that being said, please accept my apologies for telling a lie earlier when I said I would only submit updates via photos… however, this should be good news as I am glad to improve the whole experience. For those who haven’t been part of my group buys, this is normal. During the Japanese group buy I put a lot of stuff from my journey in Tokyo toward the buy and for the Aged Oolong group buy there were a few individuals who donated money towards gifts for everyone; that’s technically an option here as well, but I’m not going to post about it (well, I suppose I just did). These group buys are something I do because I enjoy the experience everyone gets to join in on, therefore I dedicate time and funds towards making them memorable.
p.s. I respond a lot on here… I’m quite invested/excited
Since two people asked about this: Donations are accepted, but they will go strictly to material cost and not additional sheng. I just made a purchase of new aluminum ziplock bags that only cost $.06 per piece instead of $.07 a piece; while the difference is a penny, if these are the same quality, using 1500 to 2000 of these a year will add up. Something as small as $7 provides a whole package of labels or $1 provides 1/28th (roughly) of the ink I use to print out 553 labels and 32 shipping labels.
If you have any questions just PM me.
If you’re interested in this but did not make it, or are curious about future group buys PLEASE PLEASE press reply on this response so I can message you March/April when the next one is announced. I’m just not wanting to go through the eight messages I have asking me to let someone know, it would be much easier for me to come to the end of a thread and find everyone in one spot because I also have conversations in my messages and I don’t want to forget anyone. I’d feel bad if someone messaged me asking why I didn’t reach out to them to find out their message got buried or delete.
I smile as I see Reddit users and Instagram members joining Steepster to drop me a message. I look forward to seeing more people interacting with Steepster, the vendors we have befriended, and experience new teas, but I’m not the most organized online so please help me out :)
(In terms of tea, I’m quite organized, you’re in good hands)
edit, 1/11 I will announce the next one once this ships and I am pretty sure it’ll fill up… make of that as you will :)
Me too!! I think this is a wonderful way to find/learn more about teas w/out getting buried in it. ;)
You can go ahead and just put me down for auto sign-up. Seriously though, always interested!
Sent out a message about payment information.
@Malsa292 & @Lumpkin you need to follow me so I can message you
If anyone knows either of these two please make contact, neither are following anyone… I don’t know if they have even been on here since they commented here. There’s 4 slots between the two, let’s hope all goes well :)
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