2020 has been a weird and stressful year for most people. Despite everything, it was also a year in which I learned a lot. About myself, life and also about tea. 2020 has been the most interesting year so far in my tea journey. I learned a lot about puerh tea and discovered a lot of amazing shops where I could buy puerh tea. That is why I wanted to write this article; a list of (in my opinion) the best tea shops to buy puerh tea in 2021. This list is based on my own personal opinion and this is not sponsored in any way, I just liked the teas I bought from these shops.
This list is mostly for people who are starting out and want to learn more about puerh tea. When making this list, I looked at the price/performance ratio of the tea, the variety of teas available and the possibility of buying lower amounts and samples to try tea without spending too much money.
Where to buy puerh tea in 2021
ANMO Art Cha
This is one of my favourite tea shops in Europe, especially for puerh tea. They have a decent selection of sheng and shou puerh from Sung Sing Tea in Hong Kong.
One amazing thing here is that you can buy chunks of more expensive cakes to see if it is worth the money. If the more expensive cakes are not for you, they also have some less expensive ones and those are excellent value for money.
Terre de Ciel
This is an online tea shop from France that specialises in fairly young puerh tea, both sheng and shou. They have a couple of big 357g cakes, but it’s mostly 200g and 100g mini teacakes. This is really good because buying tea is not a big investment here.
I have bought several of the 100g teacakes and those were really good value for money. It’s a good starting point to discover new mountains and tea regions without spending too much money.
Essence of Tea
This tea shop has some pretty good teas for sale. They have some old and aged puerh, but also quite a few young sheng puerh cakes.
The aged puerh is mostly factory tea and the young sheng puerh is mostly from their own brand. If you browse their teas, you see that they have a wide variety of different areas. You can also order samples to see if you like them and to discover new puerh regions.
Tee Kontor Kiel
This tea shop from Kiel has a massive amount of teaware and other teas, but also have a nice selection of puerh tea. It’s mostly relatively young sheng puerh from various locations.
They also have a wide selection of shou puerh from various areas and everything is available in sample size as well.
Yee on Tea
I have discovered this teashop only recently, but they have some amazing aged puerh; both sheng and shou. They have one of the largest puerh stocks in Hong Kong and they have been in business since 1973.
Mostly old and aged sheng and shou puerh and they also sell some tea cakes that have been ‘traditionally stored’ in their cellars. I bought several cakes of this myself and was impressed! I experienced flavours that are simply impossible to get in Europe.
Puerhprivate/Hayslontea
This is another tea shop from Hong Kong that specialises in aged sheng puerh. They also sell shou puerh, but aged sheng is the main focus.
They have been in business for more than 20 years and have some pretty good teas at affordable prices. It’s also possible to order samples of most teas and every order has free shipping, which makes it ideal to try several different teas without spending too much money.
Vin-Satori
This is a tea (and wine) shop from France that I recently discovered and I have really been enjoying their teas. They sell sheng and shou puerh and most of the teas they are selling is organic.
The sheng puerh is between aged and young so it’s slightly matured. They offer samples of most of the teas and you can also buy packs of different samples to discover new teas. They focus on living teas and you can really taste that.
The logos from these tea shops are not mine and I used pictures from their websites to make it a bit more visual.
