High-end Puerh tea price expriencing roller coaster ride
Puerh tea was not popular in China untill the 80th of last century. Historically, it was mainly supplied to the Chinese ethnic minorities living in Northwestern borders, and exported to Southeastern Asia. Even local Yunnan people prefer green tea or black tea than the Puerh they produced.
The situation changed in mid 90th of last century, while hot money from Hongkong and Taiwan rushed into the domestic Puerh market. Local people began to realize how much money these people spent on puerh, and how much they made by selling them. Coupled with the gimmick of "the older the better value" (Puerh tea does enhance through years of good keeping, albeit "age" alone is not the guarantee of quality and value, other factors like standard of raw materials, year of harvesting, processing knon-how, etc all jointly decides the final value of Puerh), local people sensed a "fool-proof", get rich faster opportunity. More money and even more people flocked into the market.
In April this year, the price of Puerh reaches a new height, branded Puerh for the high-end market raised 50-80% in value compared with last year's November price, as raw materials price raised due to late harvest this year. Only after one month, the price of high-end Puerh dropped drastically to around half of its April price.
