Spring Green Tea Market, Costs, and Shipment Musings

I am a green tea lover, so there is nothing that gives me more of a thrill that the arrival early spring green teas. For the last two years I have been here in Tucson waiting like everyone else for the tea to arrive. That’s what happens when you have kids in school. Zhuping is having all the fun, but it is still great when I start opening up the boxes.

During the Tang Dynasty tea was graded based on the first tea to make it to the capital, which in those days was Xian. It must have been just so exciting as the horses raced across China to bring the first tea to the emperor. Today I just got the UPS truck which came in the morning with 14 boxes of the best green tea I’m going to get in 2010.

It was a cold winter in China this year in the East, so the harvest was pushed off. There is not going to be as much Ming Qian tea as usual, but this is all Ming Qian that came today. Zhuping has done a great job of finding great tea and keeping the prices down in a year when the competition has been fierce. The market went crazy and some prices skyrocketed. I received a gift from a government friend of some Anji Bai Cha that sold for close to $500 a kilo, and Shi Feng Long Jing was even higher. We are lucky to have long standing relationships with the producers we buy from, so we were not hit as hard. I’m nervous about opening my gift (but I will).

It was hard to decide what to try first, but I went for the Tang Dynasty favorite, Gu Zhu Zi Sun (Purple Bamboo Shoot). I am especially excited about this tea because it is from wild bushes and traditionally made. I am going to write a post about it soon with photos. I’m just a little bit behind as always. We hope to have our teas packed and ready to buy by the middle of next week. I love this tea! I can’t wait to try all of them.

Austin