Is Expensive Tea Always Better?

Let me start with a short story.
In a tea market in the north, I was drinking tea with the shop owner when a customer came in. The shop was small, so I watched how the owner served him.
Customer: Do you have Jin Jun Mei?
Owner: Yes. What level would you like, sir?
Customer: Try high, middle and low.

I sat to the side; the customer sat in the middle with his back to the door. The teas were kept in cardboard boxes by the entrance. I watched the owner scoop three samples from the same box, set them on the table, and brew them in three gaiwans with three sharing pitchers, pouring into three cups. All three brews were poured at the same time, and the owner introduced them as a few hundred yuan per jin, over a thousand, and the most expensive at over three thousand.
The customer concluded that the expensive one tasted best, the owner agreed, and the customer bought the most expensive one.

Many people cannot really taste tea.

And that creates opportunities.

One tea, sold at three prices, brewed in front of you at the same time - and you still think the expensive one is better.
In some livestream shops there is only one loose tea; today it is sold as Laobanzhang, tomorrow as Bingdao, the day after as Yiwu ancient-tree tea. One cake, with its wrapper changed again and again, can be "any famous mountain".
All of this happens because customers do not understand tea. But I often tell them: customers will eventually understand, or they will find a friend who can taste tea - then what? This is also why return rates in tea livestreams are tens of percent. But it does not matter, as long as the margin covers it - with 500% or even 1000% profit, no amount of returns is a problem.

Because people cannot taste, faking becomes the industry "norm"

Pure ancient-tree Laobanzhang has an annual output of a little over twenty tons, yet every year tens of thousands of tons of "pure ancient-tree Laobanzhang" are sold.
Mangbang first-grade produces a few hundred kilograms, but look at how many people are selling first-grade Mangbang ancient trees on their timelines.
According to paper-wrapping mills, the three most printed wrappers are "Bingdao, Laobanzhang and Yiwu" - yet these teas make up less than 0.1% of production, while their wrappers may account for more than 50% of print runs.

Tea can be fake, but the price cannot.

Laobanzhang ancient tree costs about 200 yuan per kilogram to source (even if the tea actually comes from a village a few kilometers away). But the selling price must look real - genuine Laobanzhang ancient tree goes for over ten thousand, so the fake one must also sell above ten thousand; basically the whole price is pure profit.

Conclusion

Expensive does not mean good.
Forget the price, forget the wrapper, forget who made it - return to the tea itself and taste it. That is the only way.