Tagged: auction price

The Priciest Tea Ever Auctioned, and Why the Market Never Saw That Price Again

Twenty grams of mother-tree Da Hong Pao sold for 208,000 yuan in 2005, and every "world's most expensive tea" figure since is that one lot multiplied up to a kilogram. The five sales behind the record, and why the market that set it stopped in 2006.

Why Is Tea So Cheap?

Tea's auction price has gone nowhere for 20 years and now sits below what was paid a century ago, in real terms. Here is what the figures say is actually happening, and who is absorbing the squeeze.

Why a Drought Doesn't Always Raise the Tea Price

Two Kenyan droughts, a dry Assam monsoon, and a Sri Lankan cyclone give four real, recent tests of what a weather shock does to the tea price. The answer is not the simple shortage story it looks like from outside.