Taobao pu-erh shopping guide

[thanks]

I finally got around to signing up on Taobao Now! which is located here; http://www.taobaonow.com/

If you're not familiar with Taobao, it's basically a massive Chinese eBay. As you could imagine, there is a lot of tea available through Taobao, but without using a service such as Taobao Now or something similar, us westerners are out of luck. Taobao Now acts as a middle man of sorts, as you copy paste an item url through Taobao Now and it tells you how much it will cost you to purchase through them including a small fee. This opens up a massive world of pu'er that we have never seen before in the west, and I personally find this very exciting. Hence this thread. Hobbes has been using Taobao quite a bit recently from what I understand, and I think I might be taking the plunge within the coming weeks as well. This thread will be a great place to post experiences, reviews, and store recommendations so that we can all get along well together. I hope also that our friends from around the world who have already used Taobao could chime in and share some of their great knowledge as well.

Here is a store that Hobbes has recommended to myself, and has a decent selection of pu'er;

http://shop34021968.taobao.com/

Let's see if we can start a list going.

[Maitre_Tea]

I haven't use Tao Bao personally, but will be taking the plunge shortly...I'm looking for some '01-03 Xia Guan tuocha, and here are some places that seem to have a good reputation (based on ratings):

http://shop35329398.taobao.com/
Mostly older stuff, I think xuancheng recommended this shop.

http://shop33282611.taobao.com/?search= ... null&ends=
Seems like they have a large selection of Menghai stuff, pretty good prices from the snooping around I've done.

http://shop34851426.taobao.com/
A ton of Xia Guan stuff here, will definitely be ordering from here...and their 100% satisfaction rating makes me feel a little more at ease

http://shop33321229.taobao.com/
The Tao Bao outlet of Awazon, if anyone is interested. The prices are lower, but not as low as I would've thought.

Some guidelines, from what I've gleaned thus far:
1. Like with Ebay, look for vendors with lots of sales and high satisfaction ratings, I think it's recommended to only go with vendors with at least 500 transactions and 99%+ approval rating.
2. Employ the (guided) scatter-gun approach. Buy single things from several vendors that match what you're looking for. Buy in bulk the one you're happiest with. Even though the prices are low, there is still a good chance that it might be a fake. Sure, a tong of 7542 may only cost around $45, it's wasted time/money if they all turn out to be fake.
3. Something old will be more risky than something modern, and I've heard from Hobbes that modern (post 00) stuff should be fairly reliable

Two handy resources for those who don't know Chinese:
http://taobaofieldguide.com/
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

[chrl42]

Best thing about Taobao, is real-time messenger, (oops time zone is different)

They also have 7-day guarantee, is that you can send back the stuff in 7 day, refund but you pay for the delievery (which I think impossible for oveaseas customers )

Third, they don't accept visa or mastercard, in China, we use 'Union Pay', Chinese goverment seems to be bugged to connect China market and overseas market, not only business but also communication (they blocked most of English-blogs! ), in China, everything is CASH, one who use credit card is the one who walks in cutting-edge situation

I heard Taobao will be merged into Ebay in future, but so far that's just a rumor

[gingkoseto]

I heard Taobao will be merged into Ebay in future, but so far that's just a rumor

I wish someday ebay can be merged by taobao and become a free auction site without listing fee or transaction fee

[gingkoseto]

I haven't use Tao Bao personally, but will be taking the plunge shortly...I'm looking for some '01-03 Xia Guan tuocha, and here are some places that seem to have a good reputation (based on ratings):

http://shop35329398.taobao.com/
Mostly older stuff, I think xuancheng recommended this shop.

http://shop33282611.taobao.com/?search= ... null&ends=
Seems like they have a large selection of Menghai stuff, pretty good prices from the snooping around I've done.

http://shop34851426.taobao.com/
A ton of Xia Guan stuff here, will definitely be ordering from here...and their 100% satisfaction rating makes me feel a little more at ease

http://shop33321229.taobao.com/
The Tao Bao outlet of Awazon, if anyone is interested. The prices are lower, but not as low as I would've thought.

Some guidelines, from what I've gleaned thus far:
1. Like with Ebay, look for vendors with lots of sales and high satisfaction ratings, I think it's recommended to only go with vendors with at least 500 transactions and 99%+ approval rating.
2. Employ the (guided) scatter-gun approach. Buy single things from several vendors that match what you're looking for. Buy in bulk the one you're happiest with. Even though the prices are low, there is still a good chance that it might be a fake. Sure, a tong of 7542 may only cost around $45, it's wasted time/money if they all turn out to be fake.
3. Something old will be more risky than something modern, and I've heard from Hobbes that modern (post 00) stuff should be fairly reliable

Two handy resources for those who don't know Chinese:
http://taobaofieldguide.com/
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

The 2nd one is pretty good and I think they are very reliable.
Good thing about puerh shopping is many products are standard and there are barely any fake products of the current year new tea.

[puerhking]

Here is the translated site. There is some pretty funny Chinglish going on but it helps.

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_ur ... =Translate

Here are some phrases you can use to do a lookup in Chinese. Just copy and paste them into the first open box on the site. It doesn't seem to work on the translated site so use the original site.

大益 - dayi
07年 饼 - nian bing - search by year (just change to the year you want)
勐海茶厂 - menghai tea factory
下关 - xiaguan
中茶 - zhong cha (CNNP)
安宁海湾 - anning haiwan (haiwan tea factory)
澜沧古茶 - lancang ancient tea
生茶 - sheng cha
熟茶 - shu cha
普洱 - puerh
宜兴 茶壶 - yixing tea pots

types of yixing clay

大红袍 - da hong pao
朱泥 - zhu ni - vermillion clay
本山 - ben shan a type of - luni
绿泥 - lu ni or green clay
黄泥 - huang ni - yellow clay
灰泥 - hui ni - ashy clay
青灰 - qing hui - blue grey a type of hui ni
红泥 - hong ni - red clay

so if you want a hongni yixing just put in -
宜兴 红泥

[J.]

Hi,

These shops look great there are a lot of different pu (and also aged pu) at really cheap prices (for a westerner) but it seems to be impossible to order outside of China.

Am I wrong?
If I am, could you please tell me how to do.
Maybe other people have the same question.


Thanks

[thanks]

Hi,

These shops look great there are a lot of different pu (and also aged pu) at really cheap prices (for a westerner) but it seems to be impossible to order outside of China.

Am I wrong?
If I am, could you please tell me how to do.
Maybe other people have the same question.


Thanks

I explained this in the op. With the service Taobao Now you can order things from Taobao. The link and explanation are at the top of the page.

[xogget]

Just signed up for a Taobaonow account! I'm excited to find aged puerh but taobao is very overwhelming, especially since I don't know chinese. I'm mostly looking for 99/00 cakes of some of the more well known menghai recipes. I've found good-looking cakes such as a 99 7532 for as little as 100rmb (http://item.taobao.com/auction/item_det ... m?cm_cat=0) from sellers with very high ratings. Is that a reasonable price or should I be wary of a price that low? Or is there something obvious I'm missing that someone who knew chinese would immediately see?

[Maitre_Tea]

I would be wary just because with such low prices there are some things that can go wrong. First, there's a possibility that it's a fake and secondly, the reason why it's being sold for such a low price is that it's been aged badly. I would run the description through a translator or something to see if it is what it is. If you're not too sure, I would ask someone who has more experience.

I don't have the know-how to make that kind of a judgment, but if something seems too good to be true, it probably isn't. I don't think a well-aged '99 7532 would sell for that low, even in Asia...but maybe I'm not savvy enough with Tao Bao to find the really good deals. But it's only 100 RMB, so even if it turns out to be a complete dud it won't be too much money wasted.

I have a pretty big order coming in probably in the next week or so, and I'll report back here with more details.

[gingkoseto]

You can always click the feedback points and read (google translate) the feedbacks. I usually read the negative feedbacks only, if there is any. Some good sellers still have a few negative feedbacks (due to irreasonable buyers and "professional negative feedback givers" hired by some other seller). But the sellers' responses say a lot about if the negative feedback is reasonable and if the buyer is responsible.

For example, the seller that xogget pointed out, never responds to negative feedbacks. Many other sellers do better than that. The specified tea got 1 negative feedback and a few positive feedbacks in the past a few months.

Taobao also have the reputation of making it inconvenient for buyers to give feedbacks. Currently if buyers doesn't give feedback within 15 days of purchase, they can no longer give any feedbacks. So even feedbacks cannot fully reflex how good/bad a seller is. There are also legends about sellers using computer software to "decorate" their feedback results, but I don't know how true that is

[xogget]

Thanks for the tips! Another general puerh question I have is how do you know the recipe number of slightly older cakes when it's not listed? Do you know based on label colors such as Orange in Orange, Green in Orange, etc? Most of the recipe numbers aren't listed on Taobao so I'm a bit lost.

[gingkoseto]

Thanks for the tips! Another general puerh question I have is how do you know the recipe number of slightly older cakes when it's not listed? Do you know based on label colors such as Orange in Orange, Green in Orange, etc? Most of the recipe numbers aren't listed on Taobao so I'm a bit lost.

Are you talking about pre-1970s tea wraps? I have no idea. Probably some other people can provide sources that interpret the character colors. I currently buy the newest puerh for which most vendors are reliable

[Agent Taobao]

I am so honored that you guys remembered Taobao Field Guide.

=)

If anyone wants to author a snazzy guide about buying pu-erh on Taobao, I would be happy to post it.

-Guy from Taobao Field Guide

[xogget]

Are you talking about pre-1970s tea wraps?

No, I'm looking at cakes from the mid 90s to the mid 00s. I don't see any recipe number on the labels and many times the Taobao seller has no recipe listed--just the year of production. How do you figure out what the recipe is of a cake from that period? Is it the color combination of interior and exterior labels?