Qing Xiang Pu’er
Wednesday January 17th 2007, 3:04 pmFiled under: General
Years ago, when I first started getting interested in Chinese tea, no-one had ever heard of pu’er, the black, earthy, fermented cave tea from Yunnan. Usually sold in bricks and cakes, pu’er is traditionally made from wild (uncultivated) tea trees that grow hundreds of feet tall in the jungle. Nowadays Pu’er is cultivated much like any other green tea, save that the plants are a different cultivar of camellia sinensis, and so look and taste quite different from oolongs and other green teas.
Oh, how I enjoyed the ten, twenty, even fifty year old aged pu’ers, aged and guarded like fine Bordeaux, or Islay single malt. Not knowing better, I purchased and drank whole stocks of wine-red pu’er from the most famous farms and tea companies of Yunnan, never keeping my own reserve, just drinking and enjoying.
That, as they say, was then. Now, I find myself in a desperate struggle to import high quality pu’er without breaking the bank. It turns out that as China boomed, and Taiwan invested deeper and deeper in the countryside, the world (well, at least Asia) turned on to pu’er big time, and suddenly, all the old stocks were gone, and prices were skyrocketing!
As my knowlege of tea grew, I found myself horrified at all that I had drunk (since I saved the labels), and how much they would be worth now. Each of those labels reminds me, with a whisper of scent, the delight of each of those teas. I cannot get them now.
I import pu’er, its a popular product. I have over 26 varieties, some loose, some brick, some round cake, some “golden melon”. Each visit to China, I go deeper and deeper into the countryside myself, looking for enterprising farmers willing to sell their own young stock (all the old stuff is long gone). I have a local agent to do the real bargaining, my Chinese is great, but no way would I bargain for myself!
So I wander, and hope. Someday, I’ll find an old farmer out of touch, out of time. I’ll sit with him and drink long cups of wine-red pu’er laid down before the fires of revolution swept the earth of dreams.
And drink up pure fragrance, Qing Xiang pu’er, wild, old leaves, like the land before it was found.
Da Yuan Update
Wednesday January 10th 2007, 3:04 pmFiled under: General
Da Yuan (and partner Genghis Khan) sourcing and consulting (Da Yuan Kaifa Guwen Youxian Gongsi) has reached a new milestone! Da Yuan has just set up its new Hangzhou office, with first floor warehousing, full office infrastructure, staff, etc. The first client-dedicated project management team has done stellar work, and within 4 days took their project from initial information stage to prepping their first can! We look forward to shipping the first can through the new office by the end of the week.
Da Yuan has also set up new IBO (international Business Office) spaces in the new Hangzhou building, providing overseas customers with dedicated China-side office capabilities. Includes separate office suites, dedicated phone lines, fax, computer terminals, email, etc. Staff as required.
Exploding Teapots!!
Wednesday January 10th 2007, 9:54 amFiled under: General
The joys of ordering fragile objects from the Chinese countryside! In November, I ordered a shipment of special teapots for the Christmas rush that all of the customers were waiting for…a kind of clay tea serving vessel called “cha hai” (tea ocean…looks like a glorified gravy boat). The thing about “gong fu cha” (tea ceremony) is that no matter how big and how cool your selection of teapots, customers will always need a serving vessel to make a complete set. So I ordered 30 from a manufactory in Fujian province whose owners I know well. Everyone was excited about the “cha hai”, because then folks could order a complete set: teapot, serving vessel, teacups, extras (tools, smelling cups, kettle, etc.).
A week later, the box arrives to much rejoicing, although it was making an awfully cheerful jingle, like muffled Christmas bells, not a sound I wanted coming from inside the box. To my horror, when the box was opened, my eyes were greeted by the sight of thirty tea vessels in 30,000 pieces. It turns out that the fellow who packed the box decided that an international shipment of fragile teapots would be sufficiently protected by a thin layer of newspaper and nothing else! Each pot was wrapped in a single sheet, and all 30 were simply packed loose in the box with no packing material whatsoever: bubble wrap, tissue paper, cardboard spacers…nothing.
Needless to say, our hopes for a smashing Christmas season were themselves rather less “smashing” than the condition of our merchandise! It was a difficult situation, because I have used this source before, and we were depending on this order to make the year. Thousands of dollars of sales were riding on the shipment, and all of it went down the tubes with our wonderful collection of “modern art”.
In the end, we managed to do all right in sales after all, nothing nearly so much as what we had forecast, but just enough to get by. I put all the shattered remains out on a table and took pictures, which were then sent back to China with a dry note indicating receipt of the package. Of course the company was embarrassed, and offered to replace the teapots…but not the shipping.
And that itself posed an interesting dilemma: do you go with a steady source that has provided quality products in the past, but has seriously let you down, or do you bet on an unknown quantity and source a new manufacturer? Unlike big companies, we only get a shot at those kinds of shipments maybe once or twice a year for each product, so it has to be right before it gets shipped. My partners and I had many a heated discussion about it, and ’til now we stil haven’t come to any satisfactory conclusion. Big companies have it easy, shipments that size are called “samples”, but every $1000 bucks is a huge investment for a small outfit like us, and so much of our success depends on getting quality products for killer prices.
It’s easier with tea, because tea naturally doesn’t break. But teaware is tough. We’re working against the clock, as more and more Americans are drinking Chinese tea, and looking for alternatives to coffee, teabags, etc. Other companies are testing the water, and not just Chinese groups that serve the Asian market. We provide top-notch traditional Chinese products, and we’re growing a market, so we pay well for good stuff, and try not to sit on inventory. Every dollar counts. So what do we do about situations like this?
For now, we smile, and laugh about exploding teapots.
