Currently, a major characteristic of tea cake collection is that circulation within insider circles far exceeds that in auction markets. Without firsthand experience in selecting teas or expert guidance, you should be even more cautious of fraud.

Mr. Zhengyan summarized five major pitfalls in tea cake collection:

(1) Origin Trap

While art collection pursues famous artists, tea collection has always emphasized origins. Originally, famous mountain labels guaranteed tea quality, but now these teas are not only exorbitantly priced, but their quality has also become inconsistent due to blind追捧 and over-harvesting. Moreover, large quantities of external tea sources are processed and labeled as famous mountain teas. Origin labels have devolved into marketing gimmicks for merchants.

(2) Low-price Trap for Ancient Tree Pure Material

Taking the 2012 spring tea purchase price of Menghai Tea Factory as an example: cuttings-grown raw tea cost dozens to forty-some yuan per kilogram, while ancient tree tea purchase prices reached thousands of yuan per kilogram. Ancient tree tea is limited in quantity, and being able to purchase authentic pure material at high prices is already difficult. Sellers promoting so-called ancient tree pure material at low prices clearly lack common sense.

(3) Concept of Purely Wild Tea

Since humans began harvesting and planting tea, suitable tea plant varieties have generally been domesticated. Even tea trees not artificially cultivated cannot be called purely wild after human intervention such as harvesting. The abundance of wild tea cakes and bricks on the market is, to some extent, a false concept.

(4) Specific age claims of several hundred years, or even over a thousand years, are also self-deceptive.

Unless cut down to examine its rings, it's actually difficult to determine a tea tree's specific age. Due to differences in soil poverty and fertility, the trunk thickness of similarly aged old trees can vary greatly. It's common in the industry for several tea experts to estimate an old tree's age with results ranging from over a hundred years to six or seven hundred years. This shows that age estimation is a subjective judgment lacking scientific basis and shouldn't be deeply trusted as a pricing standard. Detailed records are necessary.

(5) In Pu-erh tea collection, attention should be paid to the tea's wrapper and inner ticket, as different periods used different papers and printing. Understanding related content not only enriches our tea knowledge but also plays a significant role in identifying authentic tea cakes.

Tea cake collection is primarily a sensory experience, unrelated to stories. To improve tasting ability, one must continuously gain firsthand tea acquisition experience, drink more and savor more, and even more importantly, connect with more experts. Knowing the tea by knowing the people is the essential method. Only with reliable palate feel and physical sensation can one truly understand what good tea is.