Taste vs. Cost

Spring is here!  Okay, more accurately it is Summer in the northern hemisphere, but it has only been as such for the past week or so.  Spring means a fresh harvest of tea.  This year I decided to purchase a sample of every raw puer tea that white2tea has produced.  This order came in at just under $100 for 200g of tea, with samples ranging from just over $2 all the way to an alarming $34.

Something which I have spent a lot of time thinking about is price justification in tea.  The cost we see as consumers reflects raw materials cost, processing, travel expenses, warehouse space, web hosting fees, operational costs, potential sample markup.. the list goes on and on.  This post is not intended to rail against the cost of tea in general, but I feel it bears mentioning.  What exactly makes a tea worthy of a price an order of magnitude above another?  Also, can I even discern such differences?

I am in no way an experienced puer drinker, although I have been getting a bit more serious about it over the past year or so.  I wanted to expand my palate in the realm of fresh raw puer and I also wanted to see whether my tongue's preferences align with the cost of a tea.  To do this, I set up a blind tasting of the 8 different samples I purchased.  I measured out 7g of each tea and placed them in numbered bags and have been drinking through them and taking notes for the past month or so.  Each was steeped in a 100ml gaiwan and went through around 8 infusions.

I'll include my full notes below, along with the ranking I gave the teas after each subsequent sample.

Notes

#1 -  Smooth.  Thick, silky mouthfeel.  Grapey/slight apricot sweetness.  Virtually no astringency.  Slight smoke.  Not overly complex.  "simple".  Pleasant throaty aftertaste.

#2 - Juicy.  More up-front than #1.  Similar flavor, hedging towards more fruit.  Better aftertaste with a slight cooling feeling in the throat.  Some tongue-drying astringency.  Developing a coating quality on steep #3, a bit bitter.  Some noticeable energy from this tea.  Caffeine is definitely present.

Rank - 2, 1.

#3 - Thick.  Surprisingly soft, however small amount of hay-like 'barnyard' taste.  Coats the roof of the mouth.  Slight cooling.  Aftertaste is mouth-centered rather than throat-centered.  This 7g is rather stemmy.  Becoming throatier as it steeps out.  Bitterness on par with yesterday (#2).  Vaguely 'grapey' aftertaste.  Slight disorienting feeling like a head fog.  Huigan is building as steeps go on.

Rank - 2, 3, 1.

#4 - Stimulating.  Produces an immediate tingling, cooling tongue sensation that lingers after swallowing.  Almost all taste centers on the tip of the tongue and makes it salivate.  Floral, grapelike aftertaste blooms in the mouth.  On steep 3 the taste moves back in the mouth and develops strength.  A thick sweetness is developing, too.  Mouth stimulation continues as it steeps out, but moves back towards the throat.

Rank - 4, 2, 3, 1

#5 - Throaty.  Produces a 'pooling' feeling in the throat, as if it were physically sitting there.  Interesting cured meat smell on gaiwan lid.  Quite soft overall, less obvious huigan as compared to #4.  Leaf is very bud-heavy.  Huigan building in later steeps.  Developing astringency, too.  Ignore earlier huigan comment - it is extremely apparent now.

Rank - 4, 5, 2, 3, 1

#6 - Subtle.  I'm really not getting much from this.  Fairly astringent, especially in the middle tongue and roof of mouth.  Very few noticeable flavors.  Not really getting much sweetness either.

Rank - 4, 5, 2, 3, 1, 6

#7 - Crisp.  Good smoothness, some tip of tongue astringency.  Bottom of cheek and throat aftertaste - like apples or gentle grapes.  Some salivation, good huigan that builds across the steeps.  Quite sweet on its own, too.  Grainy base.  Good endurance.

Rank - 4, 5, 7, 2, 3, 1, 6

#8 - Sweet.  Medium astringency in the middle of the tongue, but high degree of natural sweetness.  Aroma confirms that.  A candy-like sweetness is within these leaves.  Just very pleasant, easy-drinking sweet tea.  Nice aftertaste at back of tongue and top of throat.  Small leaves, though this is a 'center of the beeng' sample.  After a half-day's rest, not as sweet.  More vegetal, some floral quality now too.  Very nice overall, body still apparent.

Rank - 4, 5, 8, 7, 2, 3, 1, 6

----------------------------------------------

What are the teas?

#1 - Poundcake ($6.50) [7]
#2 - Milk, Cream, & Alcohol ($2.35) [5]
#3 - Bosch ($16.00) [6]
#4 - If You're Reading This... ($6.50) [1]
#5 - Tu Hao as Fuck ($18.50) [2]
#6 - Last Thoughts ($34.00) [8]
#7 - Colbert ($10.50) [4]
#8 - Little Walk ($2.60) [3]

I find it extremely interesting that I rated one of the cheapest teas as my favorite, whereas the most expensive tea I ranked dead last.  Indeed, the price fluctuation between my rankings is about as random as I expected it to be.

What does this mean?

1) My palate for young raw puer teas is not appropriate to appreciate high-caliber teas (Last Thoughts, I'm lookin' at you...)
2) I tend to prefer the easier-drinking teas, and specifically ones with good mouth action beyond just a simple sweetness/astringency. 

I will most certainly be re-visiting all of these teas until my samples are gone.  There are a few anomalous experiences across my tasting which I wish to resolve with a more carefully tuned awareness.

Most of all, I think this goes to show that there are so many factors that go into whether a tea is worth it to a particular person.  Personal taste is definitely the biggest.  You simply cannot make someone appreciate something more expensive if they do not already have a taste for such things.  I'm glad that I took the price of the teas out of the equation for my first tasting.  I still have around 18g of each of these teas left, so I can proceed with a bit more background knowledge when I approach them again. 

If you reached the end of this rather long-winded post, thank you!  I encourage you to take everything I have written with a grain of salt, since I am in no way an authority, or even someone you ought to listen to.  I hope you have found this somehow informative!

Happy tea drinking.