This is a follow-up to the previous post - The Year that Changed Puerh Tea (2005) to address the question, “What happened to these teas and how are they viewed?”
Let us begin by recognizing that the market for puerh tea is massive and caters to many kinds of tea drinkers on different budgets as well as having different aspirations. For the serious collector and enthusiast with deep pockets mid-2000s are generally not looked upon favorably and these years are simply skipped over. It is not difficult to find better options not least from the early 2000s. That said, from the perspective of an ordinary and less demanding tea drinker these flaws or defect does not make the tea undrinkable. For the right deal there is always a buyer willing to overlook/tolerate certain shortcomings. In this respect mid-2000s puerh tea have their place in the market.
In the years that followed amidst the crisis a dark association would emerge for all the wrong reasons. Underground production scams turned to cheap and unwanted mid-2000s teas for their operations, favoring those from big factories like Menghai TF and Xia Guan TF. These teas are then altered in dubious Chinese warehouses that facilitate wet storage conditions intended for rapid ageing and transformation. Once the transformation is complete these fake teas are sold at greatly inflated prices under the pretext of old tea. Within the designated category these fake teas are offered below market value to recruit sellers as well as lure unsuspecting buyers. Brand recognition from a reputable big factory holds considerable value towards building trust (albeit a false one under the circumstance), and with many puerh enthusiasts unable to accurately identify tea from this time period (employing vague and generic label/packaging) many fall victims. To an extent these activities can be observed from suspicious listings within the marketplace, most notably (but not limited to) the availability and selling of 1990s puerh tea at suspiciously low prices. It is a deviously cunning scam that has compromised many becoming a malignant cancer within the industry.
