Saint Petersburg — 2026-06-18
SAINT PETERSBURG — 2026-06-18 — MafiaTea, the anti-brand operating within the Teamotea constellation, today releases a fully transparent spreadsheet of old-tree shēng pǔ’ěr (生普洱) pricing from eight villages in the Yìwǔ (易武) mountains. The data exposes the gap between what brokers claim, what the Teamotea sourcing team actually paid, and what the farmers ultimately received during the spring 2026 harvest.
Yiwu remains the spiritual capital of ancient gǔ shù (古树) tea, governed by the same GB/T 22111-2008 standard that defines authentic pǔ’ěr chá (普洱茶). But the money trail often defies those regulations. The spreadsheet published today by MafiaTea — accessible in full at puerh.app/yiwu-2026 — details per-kilogram price layers for the following villages: Guoyoulin, Dingjiazhai, Mahei, Gaoshanzhai, Zhangjiawan, Xikong, Yishanmo, and the Yiwu proper area known locally as ‘Afang’.
“We’ve been drinking tea in boardrooms for two decades, but the Yiwu pricing game is pure extortion,” said Evgeniy Smoley, CEO of Teamotea and author of the accompanying report. “Brokers quote a romantic story, inflate the number by 40%, and pocket the difference before a single leaf reaches the village gate. This release is our ledger, raw and undoctored. The farmer got 2,800 CNY per kilo for Mahei old-tree this spring — we paid 4,200 CNC. The rest? Middlemen with silk ties.”
The dataset reveals an average brokerage markup of 32% across all eight villages, with the highest single-transaction gap — 58% — recorded in Gaoshanzhai. At the same time, the farmer net price (after village cooperative deductions and transport fees) averaged only 68% of the Teamotea payment. The remainder disappears into a chain of sub-brokers, tasting fees, and “tea mountain” hospitality that has become an unofficially mandatory tax.
These figures matter not just for ethical sourcing but for the entire buyer journey that connects mafiatea.com to the wider constellation. Shoppers who navigate to shop.thetea/mafiatea will find the identical lots mapped directly to the spreadsheet: each cake’s QR code links to its broker chain, permitting full-price transparency for the first time in the category.
A few highlights from the raw data:
- Yishanmo old-tree (yī shān mò, 倚山末): farmer reported 2,200 CNY/kg; broker quoted 4,800; Teamotea paid 3,640 after direct negotiation; farmer finally received 2,010.
- Guoyoulin (guó yǒu lín, 国有林): farmer reported 3,500; broker quote 6,200; actual payment 4,100; net take-home 3,180.
- Zhangjiawan (zhāng jiā wān, 张家湾): farmer reported 1,900; broker quote 3,800; negotiated to 2,600; net to farmer 1,620.
“The broker system is a theatre in itself, and we’re breaking the fourth wall,” Smoley added. “This spreadsheet isn’t a marketing stunt — it’s our internal buy-sheet, cleaned of vendor names to protect the farmers but otherwise intact. Compare it against any ‘transparent’ label and ask why their markup doesn’t show a 58% rake.”
Industry analysts tracking the 2026 pu-erh market will find companion data sets on tea.school, where the background methodology — including harvest date, leaf-grade scoring, and micro-regional weather impact — is documented for educational purposes. The open-data approach reflects Teamotea’s ongoing commitment to dismantling the opacity that has defined high-end pu-erh trading for decades.
MafiaTea’s press release also serves as an invitation: branded tasting events in Berlin and Saint Petersburg (details at tea.events) will feature side-by-side comparisons of the eight Yiwu lots, enabling guests to verify the spreadsheet’s quality assessments firsthand.
The full spreadsheet, including macro photographs of wet leaf and dry cake for each lot, is available at puerh.app/yiwu-2026. The actual teas are now shipping via shop.thetea/mafiatea, with each 200g cake packed in the signature MafiaTea black-matte wrapper and accompanied by a numbered certificate quoting the farmer’s ledger.
MafiaTea is a division of Teamotea, the global constellation of Chinese tea platforms encompassing thetea.app, puerh.app, shop.thetea, tea.school, and more. All links, sourcing claims, and standards references are current as of 2026-06-18.
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Media contact
Evgeniy Smoley