Originally Posted by
anacapamalibu
The scammers need to reprint come copies of this article for third party verification that the customer isn't getting ripped off.
China's national treasure, the giant panda, will become even more precious if one businessman succeeds in using their dung to grow organic green tea he intends to sell for over $200 a cup.
The first batch of panda dung tea will be sold in lots of 50 grams that will cost some 22,000 yuan ($3,500) each, a price An said makes it the world's most expensive tea. Most people use about 3 grams of tea per cup
PANDA DUNG TEA
Yeah, some teas can be crazy expensive. In fact, there was an article in the
China Daily last week about the annual tea auction in Hangzhou, during which the very first batch of longjing tea was pre-sold for ~$27,500 per 500 grams. Wait a few weeks, and that price drops to around $250. Wait a month, and we're looking at $150, etc, etc, etc.
I must admit that, in spite of the fact that I have a simple palette, spring longjing (small leaves) honestly does taste better than the summer stuff. That having been said, once you start subdividing "spring" by the day, I'm unable to discern any meaningful differences.
At any rate, I think it's safe to say that the tea ceremonies being described in this thread do
not utilize tea that costs $55k/kg.
Speaking of tea, I brought some people to Houhai last Friday, and we chanced upon a tea store in Yandai Hutong. The owner was really excited to see me because, apparently, I've brought tons of business his way over the years. When all was said and done, we made off with a mere 100 g of nice longjing tea for y140, and simultaneously killed the better part of an hour in his shop, while provided us with a "tea ceremony" (I realize there is no such thing in Chinese culture). Even if his price was on the high side (I'm not sure), an hour in Starbucks would have set (the 5 of) us back more than y140, and we wouldn't have walked away with a quality gift for a, yet to be determined, recipient in the US. Add to this the fact that I got a chance to rest my legs and get out of the cold, I call it a "win-win-win" scenario.