Yiwu vintage tracker — quarterly online roundup

What ninety minutes of Yiwu tracking actually looks like

This roundup is not a class and not a sales pitch. It is a working session — Amgalan Chin shares his screen, opens the tea.dog alert log filtered to Yiwu Shēng Pǔ’ěr (生普洱), and walks the room through what the last quarter actually surfaced. No staged narrative. The cakes appear in the order they appeared in the feed.

The first twenty minutes are a wide pan across the quarter. Amgalan reads the headline numbers — how many Yiwu listings crossed the watchlist, how many were from named single villages (Mahei, Gaoshanzhai, Bohetang, Wangong, Guafengzhai), how many were vague “Yiwu mountain” pressings from unverified pressers. He plots ask-price movement against the prior quarter and flags where the gap between asking price and last realised auction price on shop.puerh.app has widened or narrowed. This is the part where collectors take notes. No buy-recs are issued — only the observation that, for example, mid-aughts Mahei máochá (毛茶) cakes are being asked at roughly twelve percent above where they cleared in Q1.

The middle forty minutes go cake-by-cake through five or six listings that Amgalan considers instructive. Instructive does not mean recommended. Sometimes a cake is instructive because the wrapper paper looks correct but the leaf grade in the broken-edge photos does not match a 2008 Yiwu profile. Sometimes it is instructive because the seller has provenance documentation that genuinely traces back to a known chá nóng (茶农) family in Mahei. Sometimes it is instructive because the price is absurd in either direction. For each one he reads the listing aloud, shows the photographs at full resolution, points at the bǐng (饼) compression, the stem ratio, the colour migration on the wrapper, and says what he sees. Members watching can drop questions into the side panel and Amgalan addresses them as they fit the cake under discussion.

The final twenty minutes are forward-looking but cautious. Amgalan covers what is likely to enter the alert feed in the next quarter — the late-spring pressings from the 2026 chūn chá (春茶) season starting to settle, the older single-village stock that always emerges in late summer as Chinese vendors clear cellar inventory before the autumn flush. He flags two or three producers whose 2026 work is worth watching and explains why, in terms of leaf material and processing rather than hype.

The session closes with a fifteen-minute open Q&A that runs past the ninety-minute mark for anyone who wants to stay. Amgalan also fields requests for the next quarter — if attendees want deeper coverage of, say, Bohetang versus Guafengzhai pricing, that goes on the list for September’s roundup.

The recording is posted to tea.community within forty-eight hours with timestamps for each cake discussed. Members of tea.community and puerh.app can re-watch indefinitely. Cross-references to specific lots on shop.puerh.app are linked in the companion document. There is no homework, no pre-reading, and no expectation that you arrive having tasted any of the cakes under discussion. The point is the pattern across the quarter, not any single pressing.

What you get

• A guided walk-through of every Yiwu Shēng Pǔ’ěr (生普洱) alert that crossed tea.dog watchlists in the prior three months

• Ask-price versus realised-price comparisons against the shop.puerh.app auction record

• Cake-by-cake forensic read on five to six instructive listings — wrapper, bǐng (饼) compression, leaf grade

• Forward-look at which single-village Yiwu producers Amgalan is watching into Q3

• Open Q&A that runs past the ninety-minute mark for anyone who wants to stay

• Recording archived on tea.community within forty-eight hours, with timestamped chapter markers

• Companion document with direct links to every lot and listing referenced

Practical details

• Location — Online — link delivered by email the day before, also visible in your tea.community dashboard

• Language — English, with Mandarin terms and pīnyīn (拼音) shown on screen as they come up

• Kit included — Nothing to prepare. A second screen is useful if you want to follow listings live on shop.puerh.app while Amgalan presents

• Accessibility — Live captions on by default. Recording with downloadable transcript posted within two days

• Dress and setting — Cameras optional for attendees. Most join muted from a desk with a cup of whatever they are working through

• Food and drink — Bring your own. Amgalan usually drinks a 2017 Mahei during the session and will mention what he is pouring

• Price note — Free for active members of tea.community and puerh.app. Non-members can purchase a single-session pass or apply trial credit from tea.degree