The economy in Malaysia is terrible. Earlier in the year they brought in a 6% sales tax, which left restaurant owners, cabbies and other small business owners complaining about a fall off in trade. The Malaysian ringgit continued its slow and steady decline in value against the dollar, renminbi and pound sterling, making imports more expensive. Then the Chinese stock market and economy began to look increasingly shaky and the ringgit dropped sharply.
This is terrible news for Malaysian business owners. Times are getting more and more difficult for them.
In China, the puerh tea market has also taken a bit of a nosedive. Those speculating in big factory teas have watched the value of their investments plummet.
All this has put some pressure on the tea market, but also created some interesting opportunities for tea lovers.
We’ve spent the past couple of months hunting around in Malaysia and Fangcun tea market in Guangzhou. We had a clear goal in mind – to find tea that was unrecognised, underpriced and of exceptional quality. We tasted many teas, went down some fruitless paths, bargained hard and in the end, we’ve managed to secure stock of 3 aged puerh teas which we feel epitomise our goals.
Since the wrapper, provenance or story weren’t our goals with these teas, we’ve wrapped them with a simple plain wrapper, stamped with a Peacock. These are teas for tea lovers at a price that’s difficult to find in the market. Each one has its own charms and I can highly recommend them all.
Check them out, on our puerh tea page.