When news of the earthquake reached Guangzhou's Fangcun tea market, something impossible happened: the going price of pu-erh tea remained the same despite significant supply disruptions.
This contradiction raised questions about market manipulation; a product's price should respond to supply changes, yet pu-erh tea's price remained untethered from its reality.
Buyers, sellers, and traders were left perplexed as the damage inflicted by the earthquake should have increased pu-erh tea prices, revealing deeper issues in market dynamics.
Pu-erh tea, with its historic roots in Yunnan, became symbolic of not just culinary tradition, but also complex economic relationships and vulnerabilities within market structures.
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