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Teas that are more expensive than gold

There are some exclusive ‘breeds’ of Chinese teas that are currently fetching prices more than gold, a phenomenon that struck many.

Some examples are:

• The Wu Yi Oolong Da Hong Pao from the original Da Hong Pao tea tree of Jiu-Long-Ke (九龙窠), is priced for 5,200,000 Yuan/500g, that is 10,400 Yuan/g - equivalent to the value of 10 residential apartments in the Wu Yi area, or 34 times of the gold price.
• The Mao Cha harvested from the Pu-erh king tree of Lao-Ban-Zhang was sold for 240,000 Yuan/500g in 2108.
• The most famous Rou Gui (a premium Wu Yi rock tea) from the Niu-Lan-Keng (牛栏坑) is being sold for 30,000 Yuan/500g on the current market.
• 1,280,000 Yuan/500g Longjing (Dragon Well green tea) in 2018.
• 745,000 Yuan/500g Xin-Yang Mao Jian green tea in 2019.

Note: 1USD=6.7 Chinese Yuan

The above products are not only selling, but hard to get in some cases. The list of sky prices Chinse teas is also growing.

To understand this phenomenon, we need to take a few steps back and start from some fundamentals.

Tea is more than a beverage in China

In China, tea is a beverage, a culture, an obsession and inspiration to many historical and modern artists. Many Chinese ancient poems feature teas and tea consumption as spiritual elements, romantised if not centred in their works.

At the same time, the art of producing the finest teas has been an obsession by the tea farmers, right down to the finest details. High quality teas = demands = profits. The highly developed skills are guarded as intellectual properties and passed down only to the male descendants of the families and kept secret.

The determinants of the quality of a tea

There are tow crucial determinants of the quality of a tea: the quality of the tea leaves and the skills to process them.

There are numerous factors that influence the quality of the tea leaves. The area of production, the species (or particular plant/plants) of the tea bushes/trees and the harvesting time are among the most important ones.

Contributing factors of the sky prices

The affordability that came with the fast expansion of wealth in China is an obviously one.

The one to pay attention here is also a unique obsession about the ‘exclusiveness’ of products that is almost unique to the Chinese. If a product is exclusive (paired with the quality), sky is the limit for its price.

For the sky price teas: they are often marketed as:

• Tea leaves from xxx tea trees, such as Pu-erh; or xxx area such as Rou Gui; or both such as Da Hong Pao
• Hand made by xxx tea master

The real statement behind is: there is not another one like it on the current market.

Then it comes the practice of ‘faking’ the exclusive

Tea industry is a market that is relatively difficult to regulate, as it is difficult to standardise the tea quality especially at the top end. Tea consumers are the judge, and many are often not experienced enough to differentiate the subtle differences.

With the astonishing profit margins, a ‘faking’ practice is unfortunately in the brew. Examples are:

• Tea vendors use ‘blended’ teas to mimic various aspects of certain top end teas. Close but surely not the same and asking for the same or slightly lower prices.
• False adverting. For example, some vendors would pay to erect the company signages at the exclusive tea fields (eg Niu-Lan-Keng 牛栏坑 for Rou Gui) for purely advertising purpose, such as showing to visitors or in the company advertising materials. Many never use a leaf from these fields in their products.
• The claims made ‘hand made by xxx’, the truth is that he/she barely looked at the process.

There is an insider information from the Wu-Yi Oolong indsutary that 98% of the Niu-Lan-Keng (牛栏坑) Rou Gui is not from  Niu-Lan-Keng.

The obvious victims of these practices: tea farmers and consumers.

The authentic Fuding white teas

The authentic white teas produced in the white teas’ heartland Fuding and Zhenghe of the Fujian Province (south-east of China), made from the plant species Fuding Da Bai Hao (福鼎大白毫 -Fuding Big White Fur/down) have always been considered as one of the top premium Chinese teas and have their unique role on the premium Chinese teas’ stage.

What is so special about Fuding white teas

Fuding white teas are known for their:

• Limited production – only produced in a small pocket area of the Fujian Province of China.
• Made from the unique species of the tea plan Fuding Da Bai Hao (福鼎大白毫 -Fuding Big White Fur/down), the tea leaves are strong, bold and rich in flavour.
• Least processed tea of all teas, no rubbing, pressing or baking, simply withered and sun dried (with highly developed skills).
• Refreshingly sweet in nature when fresh, age into mature teas with potent medicinal functions if stored probably.

Reasons for Fuding white teas' price hike

The Fuding white teas’ prices have in fact sky rocketed during the recent years. The market announced a 10-20% price hike over the 2018 new year after 10-35% increase in 2017 – determined by the market demand and supply ratio.

There reasons behind the hikes are as follow.  

Aged tea consumption culture

There has been a general increase in interest in consuming quality aged teas. Different from other well processed aged teas, such as Pu-erh tea and Hei Cha, white teas are:

• Fresh and delicate to drink when young, similar to their green tea cousins. 
• Age as un-processed teas while reserves all the natural ‘goodness’.

The ageing value only lays with the authentic Fuding white teas

White teas produced using other tea tree species, or using other methods than the original Fuding white teas' processing method do not possess the Fuding white teas' ageing potential and health properties.

Buy new tea, drink aged tea

Unlike most of other tea varieties, which are at their prime either fresh or well aged, white teas are ideal for consumption both young and aged. The locals have a tradition of buying seasonal white teas and drinking aged white teas.

The all rounded natures of Fuding white teas, the bold and elegant appearance, the gentle yet delicate pure flavour and the potent health effects all contribute to their increasing favour among tea consumers. 

A big advantage of Pu-erh tea in comparison to other tea categories such as green tea, is its aging nature. There is not urgency to consume the tea while fresh as a tea naturally improves with ageing. The down side however is the risks of damage during the storage period. The following images surfaced during the recent cyclone/flood in Fang-Cun of Guang-Zhou (the tea trade capital of China): the street turned into a river of tea soup and tons of teas damaged. There is not available data on how much damage has been caused yet, but the sight is not looking good. 

A good aged raw (Sheng) Pu-erh or ripened (shou) Pu-erh would require at least good 10 years storage under optimal conditions. Many factors can affect the tea’s quality if not damaged completely. The sale price of tea is therefore: the original the purchasing cost, long term storage cost factoring the damaged stock along the way.

If global warming is affecting all aspects of human lives, tea industry is not excluded and Pu-erh tea is a vulnerable one. 

There has been a recent surge of Pu-erh tea prices in China, 36%-150% over the last 12 months. Pu-erh tea is a tea class of its own, similar to premium wine in many aspects, it value increases with age. Its unique post –fermentation nature enhances its aroma and texture with time. The market value of aged Pu-erh tea generally increase by 10%-20% every year depending on the tea variety and original quality.

The following reasons are believed to have contributed to the recent surge of Pu-erh tea market prices:

1. The inflation in China is high, especially in foods.
2. The basic labour cost in the Yun-Nan Province has gone up significantly – reported to have doubled since last year. Tea making is a labour intensive process, from leaves picking to the final processing.
3. Due to the radiation concerns about Japanese tea products after last year tsunami, many tea retailers have switched to products such as Pu-erh tea. Most of Pu-erh teas are high altitude forest wild gown with low risk of industrial pollution.
4. Financial value: some investors use Pu-erh collection as investments. Many have tried share market and property investments during the last a couple decades. Property market in China now is considered to be overvalued and share market has been unstable. Pu-erh tea value increase is considered to be relatively steady.
5. Personal value: Pu-erh tea is also believed to have many potent health benefits including reducing cholesterol and weight, and assist digestion.
6. Pu-erh tea is still considered to be relatively cheap compared to other premium Chinse teas. There is therefore a bit of catching up happening.

In summary, the current demand of Pu-erh tea is high and the tea prices in China are largely driven by the balance of demand and supply. Similar to share market, we cannot predict at this point where the direction the Pu-erh tea price is pointing at. It is however the tea producer’s believe that it is unlikely to go down.

How much do we need to worry about pesticides when drinking Chinese teas? Any way to avoid or minimise the potential adverse effects?

There has been a recent report that many top brands of Chinese teas have been found to contain banned pesticides. For those who enjoy their daily serving of tea, what are the implications? This article attempts to explore the reasons behind the use of pesticides in the tea farming industry in China, the ways to avoid/minimise the potential adverse effects, and how these claims will benefit the tea industry in the long term.

Reasons behind the use of pesticides:

1. High demand for quantity. The tea market in China is much bigger than in the west. It would be hard to find a Chinese family that does not have a tea set in use. With such a big population and so many tea drinkers, the demand is understandably high.
2. High demand for quality. Similar to wine in the west, high quality teas are sought after in China. To produce high quality teas, well developed tea leaves are the first step and the cost of using manmade pesticides is much lower than an organic one.
3. Lack of knowledge of certain Chinese tea farmers in relation to the potential health impact of harmful pesticides.
4. Residuals in the farm lands from previous agriculture.
5. Some are just bad ethics, practice driven by profits only.
6. Lack of effective monitoring systems to regulate and track the pesticide use in the industry.

Ways of avoiding/minimising the potential pesticide contamination and their adverse effects:

As the original report pointed out ‘most of the residue levels are far below the national standard so people do not need to panic’ - the traditional Chinese way of saying it is: the clouds do not always mean rain.  I personally do not have serious concerns when I drink my cup of tea, provided the tea is in the premium quality range. My reasons are:

1. The farmers producing the premium quality teas are aware that to safeguard the quality and price of their final products, they need to take good care of every stage of the tea production and therefore have less tendency to overuse pesticides like the mass producers of low quality teas (often used in blends or tea bags).
2. The teas themselves have a detoxifying capacity. The noble Chinese ancient herbalist Shen-Nong used to drink teas daily to combat the toxicities as he tasted thousands of herbs/plants (some being health beneficial and others toxic) for the compilation of his first ever herbal dictionary – Shen-Nong Ben Cao. Recent researches have also documented that tea drinking can reduce the effects of various harmful substances including heavy metals.
3. Tea consumers also need to be aware that when pesticide residuals are tested in the labs, the tea leaves are ground for the extracts to be tested. When teas are consumed as beverages, we rarely digest the whole tea leaves. 

If the above is not enough to bring about some peace in tea consumers’ minds, there are also various ways of reducing the potentially adverse effects of pesticides:

1. Purchase organic teas or wild plant teas. The cost of purchasing these teas is higher for the same quality grade. These teas (or at least those offered at Valley Green Tea) are, however, produced from plantations where organic farming is certified by the regulating bodies, or leaves harvested from wild plants.
2. Rinse the tea leaves for 30 seconds with hot water (add hot water to the tea leaves in a teapot for 30 seconds and dispose of the water before brewing) to substantially reduce the potential dust and pesticide contamination.
3. One of the routine sayings at Valley Green Tea is to ‘know the farmer, know the products’.  We make every effort to get to know the tea farmers and plantations. I believe that only when I get to know the tea producers, will I get the first-hand knowledge of whether the farmers are environmentally-conscious and practise ethical farming, or are driven by profits only. We select our suppliers carefully and change them whenever necessary.

Good news or bad news?

Finally, I believe that the recent claim may damage consumer confidence to some extent, but will benefit the Chinese tea industry in the long term. It will draw more attention from the regulating bodies to further monitor the products and farming practices and introduce relevant guidelines to ensure the healthy sustainability of the industry. Teas have been consumed in China for more than 2000 years and there is no sign of this stopping. And for the tea consumers and tea suppliers like VGT? We believe peace of mind goes down well with a nice cup of tea.

There has been recent media scrutiny regarding certain food products from Taiwan containing chemical DEHP which is potentially cancer-causing. What teas are exposed to these risks?

There has been recent media scrutiny regarding certain food products from Taiwan containing chemical DEHP which is potentially cancer-causing. Valley Green Tea would like to inform our customers that this concern should NOT be associated with any of our products:

1. This particular contamination is solely associated with a Taiwanese manufacturer ‘Yu Shen Chemical Co’, and the local factories using their products as ingredients for their own. None of Valley Green Tea’s product is imported from Taiwan, and therefore impossible to be affected.
2. DEHP is believed to be ‘a banned chemical acting as a clouding agent’, presumably used in pre-processed foods and drinks that benefit from the ‘clouding effects’. There have been reports that certain ‘bubble milk tea (a mixed drink of tea, milk, men made pearls and other additives sold in plastic cups read to drink) ingredients imported from Taiwan carry the risk of contamination.  All Valley Green Tea products are raw dry tea leaves, without any preservative or additives added. We advise to brew only with water and avoid milk. ‘Clouding agent’ is not necessary at any stage of the tea preparation and thus totally irrelevant to our products.

We assure our customers who are not aware of the above facts that all teas sold at Valley Green Tea are free of DEHP.