Re: Sheng Cha

Hi.. my main experience with Shengcha is that the very young ones (younger than five years) are something I can’t drink very often.. maybe once a week, since they’re very strong and very cool (similar situation with japanese greens and neon-green tie guan yin for example, Leo will say its because of the TCM cold nature of them – and I believe him, I just don’t know anything about TCM and thus I’m careful about using these terms).
If they are high-quality “boutique teas”, then the situation is better, still they are a lot more tougher than most oolongs and thats why I’m not drinking them often. They can be quite nice though and especially the Gu Shu (from old trees) teas can be worth it for me.
If they are a bit older, like 7-10 years, there is nice stuff there and they’re not so tough on the stomach anymore either… but lots of doubts about the conditions of production there.
Anything older is mostly out of my reach financially and thus I only had samples of these.
And for the pricing…  I think that its mostly a speculation issue – pricing on the Pu’Er market is somewhat erratic, with great jumps and there was a big bubble some years ago.