Still seething from the plagiarism of my story on the Phoenix Ya Sai on this blog, I asked Mr. Zhang about the massive amounts of fake Dahongpao out there. Why, there is cheating at every level! Sometimes the tea pluckers will harvest your top mountain raw leaves but will turn in low mountain stuff. They look the same as raw leaves but once they are roasted, huge differences are obvious but too late. Outside producers will come in and open a production factory, registering with local authorities and even pass inspection. But the tea they make as Dahongpao? Not even close to being from this region. And what about the real tea from this region generically called Dahongpao? Blends of generic Wuyi low mountain stuff. No clear discernible taste of a single varietal. Blending is a cuss word here in Wuyishan, conjuring up wicked mercenary merchants. Telling a real story and selling fake tea is what the Chinese called ‘hang a sheep’s head but selling dog meat’, referring to bait and switching. That is clearly the folks mentioned in the Forbes article. I forget the name of that tea company. Real story, fake stuff. Happens everywhere, starting from the source! Mr. Zhang and I, zealous tea people, won’t let that stop us. What are you doing with those Tea University interns? Still turning them down for internship there? ‘Of course, ’ he said. ‘’Wage war on paper’, is another favorite Chinese saying. They are not fit to make tea, but they sure can talk about it with all that academic book learning. They can go sell tea in one of those chain tea companies’ -said Mr. Zhang, eccentric, long visioned, superb tea artisan.

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