Anyone have a line on oldish Xiaguan sheng with some humid storage?

I’ve got a 2005 Xiaguan coming from them in the mail now. Don’t know when I’ll get it though. It was shipped EMS parcel about a week ago and is still in China or the USPS has it and hasn’t scanned it yet, don’t know which.

To buy from the link above when your in the US you pretty much have to buy through an agent. They charge a small fee and then charge a big fee on the shipping but that is generally the only way to buy from Taobao. I used Taobao Focus for a purchase of about ten or twelve puerh cakes. Beware though because they don’t tell you the shipping when you pay for the goods and the shipping is extremely overpriced with any Taobao Agent.

Cool. Some of their stuff is quite good, others is kinda meh. Storage is always pretty decent though.. Hope your turns out..

Their price was excellent. I paid less than $20 I think except I got hit for the shipping. Still, I would have paid $60 or $70 on EBay for the same cake.

Sounds right. You save a lot of money if you order a bunch. Better overall deals by a decent margin than ebay or ali.

That vendor has also started to sell samples of some of the mid-expensive cakes.

Yes I ordered about five cakes from him and a number of cakes from other Taobao sellers. Got some definite bargains if the tea turns out to be good. Very cheap prices and Taobao Focus now passes on sales when the Taobao vendor has the item on sale. They did not do that before but they have improved their translated catalog. It is nice to be able to do a Taobao search in English. This does not work as well on the actual Taobao website. I didn’t buy any samples but the next time I probably will. They sell a 6 kg Xiaguan cake that is just too massive for something like $450.

>> accessible to a US buyer

> taobao

The times that I’ve looked at taobao, I have reeled in confusion and dismay. I’d be interested in seeing a HOWTO for buying taobao, but in this case I don’t think it would be cost-effective.

The tuo at Crimson Lotus looks a lot more like what I was thinking of.

Buying from Taobao through Taobao Focus is cost effective on some products. While their shipping is expensive sometimes Taobao is so cheap to make it worth it. I paid something like $19 for a 2005 Xiaguan raw cake. Provided the tea turns out to be good and I believe it will it was still a good price. The part of the shipping for that one cake was something like $8 or $9. But similar cakes go for $60 or $70 on EBay so it was cost effective. The seller, MX tea is one where I have tried one of his cakes and it was good. He also comes recommended by others on Steepster. If the 2 kg brick of ripe I bought turns out to be good it was a bargain even with shipping. It was less than $50 before shipping and I’m guessing the portion of shipping was about $35. Considering it is a 2004 ripe, if the seller is being truthful about it it was a bargain.

I would second this one.

Looks like what I wanted, thanks.

> Full Tuo 100 grams (3.5 oz) —$109.95

I am morally certain that no Xiaguan product could ever be worth $1/gm to me.

It is a Canadian shop, knock off 25% for conversion to USD. It is a really good time to buy anything from Canada right now.

Even $0.75/gm. I went ahead and ordered the one from Crimson Lotus.

But thanks for that note, there probably other things there that might tempt me.

You pay for that sort of age. Tea from the 90s is rare. They can get away with charging a lot more. If that tea were freshly made it would probably cost less than $15.

Xiaguan is a tea factory in Yunnan: in the old days before there were brand names, it was Factory #3.

Sheng is raw (uncooked, green) puer (pu-erh, pu’er) tea.