Puerh Plus TTB #5 - On its way
I’ll join for a round, as I will miss doing the ’Here’s Hoping’ teabox. I’m in NY. Thanks!
I’m considering joining this, if it’s not too late and I’m not too new, and but I’m on the West Coast and it seems like lots of the other people are East. Is it likely to be prohibitively expensive?
Hi Ken,
Can you please follow me so that you can message me your address once I’m finished with the box
Las vegas is the place to be! Me Red Panda and Babble all live within an hour of each other.
The box is in the mail, heading to Shine Magical.
I’ve added something different to the box this time. There are two bags labeled “Free”. Take up to an ounce or so (total) of any of these teas without replacing. These are teas that haven’t been popular in the past. I already have too much tea so I don’t want them but I figure someone else might, and they are too good to just throw out. My hope is that they are all gone by the time the box gets back to me.
Just a quick refresher since I’ve never participated in TTBs before. We should replace the the same weights of teas that we took, correct?
How likely is it that a tea that is currently listed runs out before it reaches me?
Can we put in tea that is already in the teabox? (e.g. If I have some of W2T Old Reliable that I want to put in, can I?) If we can, should we put in separate bags or can we combine bags?
Finally, we should use those tin foil ziplock bags, correct? Other TTB threads seemed to mention that it’s required. I don’t remember if the same is mentioned here.
If we have a little canister of tea sample, can we just put the entire thing in?
Sorry for all the questions lol
Yes take as much as you want, replace with the same quantity and quality. Take 10 5 gram samples and replace with 2 25 gram replacements as an example. 50g.
I think about half the tea changes on a full circle?
Yes you can add a tea thats already in there, unless there is alot of it in there already.And I would assume seperate bags.
Ugh last one I have no idea actually..
Same quality? How do I determine that?
I know for the higher end tea boxes, it’s easier to determine since it’s all pu erh. But are we allowed to put in flavored tea, for example?
Sorry. I’ve been doing this for so long I assume everyone else is an old hand. Here is a full list of rules from an earlier box:
https://steepster.com/discuss/15996-puerh-plus-ttb-number-4-finished
Re your questions, roughly half of the tea turns over as it goes around the country, so by the time it reaches you, a lot of the tea I mentioned will be gone. On the other hand, there will be a lot of other good tea. I’ve found that while the quality level moves up and down a bit, it is largely very good. People’s taste varies; for this reason please don’t put more than 20-25 grams of a single tea in the box. Otherwise, there will probably be some when it comes back to you in the next round :)
I realize that this is subjective. The main thing is to replace the tea you drink with stuff you think is good. It is perfectly OK to drink puerh and then put in a nice oolong you think people will enjoy. In fact, this time around I sampled a bunch of tea but when it was time to replace the tea, in addition to some sheng, I added two 1st flush teas from Vahdam and a Hao Ya keemun from Teavivre. I love keemun and there wasn’t any in the box, and the 1st flush teas were from 2017 so still fresh; I thought people might like the opportunity to try them.
The quantity varies tremendously. For example, when I mailed the box today there were 39 teas with less than 10 grams. For puerh, that’s only a couple of sessions; for non-puerh, a bit more. But there were also 14 teas with more than 20 grams. It is likely that many of those will still be available when the box arrives at your place.
The quality level is kind of approximate. Places like W2T, Crimson Lotus, Whispering Pines etc are better than places like puerhshop. Ditto for the non-puerh tea. Most steepsterites have a fair idea of quality. What we don’t want is low-end supermarket tea. The free bags are an example of what people don’t want; that stuff made the rounds without anyone wanting to try it. The stuff that people like are mostly name brands. It’s OK to add some unusual stuff that you got from Alibaba or wherever, but if you paid $15 a cake, it’s probably not going to be popular.
I’m not super-concerned about the bags. I don’t like baggies, but often put my tea in 4-mil ziplock plastic. Foil is not a requirement.
Flavored puerh is OK but no other flavored teas. I don’t want this to become a general-purpose tea box. The reason for non-puerh was originally so non-puerh drinkers would be able to replace puerh with their other tea. over time it has become more of a box for people like me who drink roughly 50% puerh but like other teas as well.
By the way, there isn’t any super-premium tea in the box. Most of it probably cost between 5 and 25 cents per gram. The pure sheng box has quite a bit of higher priced tea. Those are the serious pu drinkers. In fact, some of the tea that the sheng drinkers don’t want finds its way into this box.
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