How to tell if pu'er is "real"
I wrote about intentionally buying a fake pu’er recently (yes, I’m going to spam that link here at the end), but it seemed others here might have interesting input on this subject. The most obvious way to only buy “real” pu’er, a tea that really is what it’s sold as, would be to use a trusted supplier. In a comment someone asked who that would be and I listed the three names that tend to come up: Yunnan Sourcing, Chawang Shop, and White 2 Tea (those aren’t even standard factory tea brands, but might as well include it out of force of habit). An official Menghai Dayi outlet would have to sell the real tea but I’m not sure how that goes with there being officially sanctioned versions online (or related to physical shops, really).
The question is more about Aliexpress, Taobao, Ebay, other Chinese online sources, and so on. I researched the tea I bought, which may have not even existed as a “real” tea version to begin with. It was so obviously fake trying a fake was the purpose; it was sold as “cheap LBZ.” What if someone is selling standard factory teas at retail price instead; how would it be possible to separate out sources? I’d expect it wouldn’t, without some other input about the source, and guidance on analyzing leaves and Nèi fēi (a validation ticket) and the rest would only help once you owned the cake. So the question is, what parts am I missing? Horror stories about undrinkable counterfeit versions (or maybe more rare stories about really good ones) would also be interesting, but those are separate subjects.
That blog post link (not really informative related to this question, just a story about buying and researching an obvious fake): http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2017/05/shopping-for-fake-puer-in-chinatown.html
Pretty much trusted supplier. Beautiful Taiwan tea company seems well respected as well. There are a few trusted suppliers on ebay.
But most of them are pretty questionable. Both ones I got on ebay, Im fairly sure are fakes, one is a really good fake, the other is a less good fake. The better fake seems to be a wet stored younger tea than what its supposed to be. Its actually really good for the price.
The less good one is bitter and damp, its clearly a ripe/raw mix that doesnt have enough age on it. Im holding onto it, hoping it gets better.
A guy that tends to pass on good advice mentioned this list, adding to what I’d mentioned: essenceoftea, white2tea, teaurchin, chawangshop, teapals, postcardteas, hojotea, teadezhang among others. That last shop is local, here in Bangkok, and they make their own cakes, which starts into another type of discussion. I’ve been reviewing Farmerleaf teas (a Yunnan producer) and they seem decent to me, although I don’t have depth of experience to place them on a scale. Postcard is a physical shop in London, and EOT and Hojo are names that come up a lot, but from what I’ve seen of their pricing anyone on a budget with relatively conventional limits could get priced out of what they’re selling. Yunnan Sourcing brings up another type of concern, that they’re not really trying to curate teas, to select very limited versions of a specific range. Per my understanding they try to make a broad range of teas available, so knowing what you are looking for and knowing a lot about different types of options would be helpful.
“<…> So the question is, what parts am I missing? <…>”
What you are missing, is that learning to tell for sure the real from fake is not something the vast majority of consumers are capable of doing on their own or capable of learning to do so either. This is what we consumers pay the (trusted) vendors to do for us.
When you plan to make a purchase on Aliexpress, Taobao, eBay, Amazon, random Chinese online shops, other non well known and trusted sources – either do so when you are OK with the risk or you can check with the community to see if the purchases you are planning are worthwhile.
I think the most a consumer can do is to follow trusted suppliers.
Some fakes are actually not bad in the sense that they’re a decent tea advertised as something worth more. (edit: minus the part where they’re advertised as something else)
There’s also a lot of effort put into making some counterfeit teas so they can successfully mimic the tea they’re trying to copy in terms of appearance and taste. There are differences in the taste, but as Psych said, it’s something the vast majority of consumers might not be able to pick up on.
The way to tell is appearance, aroma, taste, steeps, and the texture of the leaves. But you’d have to know what the original is like to be able to distinguish.
Some fakes are easy to tell, if they don’t pass the price test or they are too old for ripe puerh. Sellers on ALiexpress would often advertise 30 or forty or even fifty year old tea and sell it for $20. You do not get real 30 year old tea so cheap even if it wasn’t any good originally. For ripe puerh some sellers will offer you ripe tea made in the 60s for instance. Any ripe before 1973 is fake as that is when they invented it.
As far as someone faking a Dayi tea it used to be that you looked for how it was wrapped before you bought it and for the security seal to glow under a black light. Now as I understand it the fakers are faking the security seal as well. Sometimes these fakes will also be sold just a little too cheap too and give you a hint that way too. Like a ten year old 7572 for only $15 is probably a fake.
There are a lot of fake exists nowadays, which we should be seriously.
I am also try to find some good quality teas online before, but there are many choices that I cant identify then I search answer here to get some reliable shop.
I think this is a good way to avoid fak eand find good quality.
I’ll chime in here by just saying that puerh seems to be a crap shoot. Separating real pu’erh from fake pu’erh seems to depend on how one defines real. A lot of so-called fakes are still pu’erh, just not the type of pu’erh they are represented as. Many are still drinkable at the very least. Then we also have the issue of factories recycling wrappers, producing knockoff teas to sell at lower price points, misrepresenting years of production, and using points of origin to denote similarities in taste profiles in teas produced elsewhere or as brand names. I’m getting pretty good at spotting fake Menghai Dayi and do well in spotting fake Xiaguan, but counterfeiters are always upping their game. Coincidentally, they are also making some pretty solid teas in many instances. At this point, I just don’t worry about it. I assume that everything is either a little sketchy or that it could be and just focus on enjoying the tea.
Yeah, to add to that, even though sometimes we say fakes, eastkyteaguy is right in that there isn’t really such a thing as a ‘fake’ tea. They tend to just refer to a tea that’s trying to copy another. Sometimes those can still be not bad to drink.
Also, every once in a while a fake is really good and sometimes better than the original or so I have been told.
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