Wow, the market sure crashed hard. And insiders claim tea prices still haven't bottomed. Huh? You thought we were talking about stocks? No, Pu'er tea. It's been some ride since 2003, with all the earmarks of a runaway bull market: greed, hype, rubes, cons, fortunes won and lost. The charge is over, the bull lies slain, but Pu'er is still a viable commodity, one that could repay long-term investors much more handsomely than conventional financial products. How's a thousand times your money over twenty years sound?

As recently as ten years ago, top Pu'er tea was the last of the Chinese bargain treasures. Just as a 1920s Shanghai-colonialist could have picked up a Song tapestry for a day's opium money, a 1998 English teacher could have bought a sublime cake of fifteen-year-old Sheng Pu'er for under 100 RMB. Even after the recent crash, today the same product would cost between 1500 and 3000 RMB. The only reason for its bargain basement history is simple lack of appreciation; how much would a '45 Mouton fetch in a Cuzco chicha bar?

Of course, Pu'er is the one tea that gets better with age, and so has always had its fans, first in Tibet and Mongolia, where it comprised half the trade of the ancient Tea-Horse Road. But it was the hill people of southern Yunnan who first contrived the intricate method whereby a simple tea leaf is turned to maocha, then steamed and pressed into cakes which can last forever, theoretically. Unlike wine, which requires a leavening agent, Pu-er undergoes fermentation naturally, transmogrified by micro-bacteria and fungi. Lest that sound icky, keep in mind those selfsame micro-organisms invest the tea with its unmatched taste and health properties.

The home of Pu'er remained southern Yunnan, where in 1973 a second breakthrough took place. Artisans at the Menghai tea factory found a way to coax raw Sheng Pu'er to a two or three-year degree of fermentation, but in only forty to sixty days. Thus was Shou Pu'er born. And despite its hurry-up origins, it too ripens nicely and mellows, reaching its potable zenith in twelve to fifteen years.

For a long time, none of this mattered much to people beyond the shadow of the Himalayas. Save for the Guangdongren, whose ardent tea-loving demographic has always included plenty of Pu'er fans. They and their Hong Kong compatriots were among the first to diversify their portfolios with substantial Pu'er investments. It was 2003, when wealth from the big Opening Up was no longer trickling but rather gushing all over urban upper classes.

The elegant subtlety of a finely aged Pu'er made it a perfect commodity for prosperous Mandarins, once they had gotten used to the new Land Rover smell and the view from their Shanghai pied-a-terres. In China, F&B trends spread faster than Bird Flu, if anyone remembers the Korean BBQ craze taking off at the same time as Pu'er did. By late 2004, no upper-class Chinese credenza was complete without a bottle of fancy Western hooch (typically XO) on top, and a clay jar of Pu'er within.

Savvy promoters picked up on the hype and spun it for gold in 2005, sponsoring a recreated trek of the Tea Horse Road, an authentically outfitted caravan led by a woman. The journey received copious national press attention, and drastically increased Pu'er's fan base. Now it wasn't just top-shelf tea in demand. Newly pressed cakes jumped from 5-10 RMB to 50-100 RMB. Average Pu'er only a few years old easily fetched 500 RMB. The massive surge in demand was rapidly reflected in tea markets such as Beijing's Maliandao Tea Street. Whereas pre-2003 only a few stores specializing in Pu'er carried the product, now no stall, however humble, was without a selection of bingcha, round Pu'er cakes of varying quality and cost.

Because real Pu'er can only be made in Yunnan's Simao (since renamed Pu'er) county, supply has always been rigidly finite. Despite some six hundred recognized factories turning out approximately three thousand tons of tea per year, this balmy little corner of southwestern Yunnan was hardly able to keep up with such an unprecedented spike in demand. Normally tea companies have their percentage in scrupulous honesty; they are usually generational family businesses which would find it inconvenient to rip up their thousand-year-old plants and find new ancestral lands to grow on. But just as bad money pushes out good money, bad tea pushes out good, and lust for quick profits prevailed over pride in reputation. Many factories began to engage in predictably detrimental shortcuts, and resellers ran the gamut of tricks: mislabeling, misrepresenting, even stuffing superior cakes with inferior product.

Still, the easy stock-gains season of 2007 ensured plenty of new buyers without the old eye, let alone tongue, for what separated great Pu'er from so-so. And after all, what was the big loss, besides a little extra portfolio earnings? Even the worst Pu'er is merely mediocre, earthy and astringent. And unless you've been sold compost, a decent bingcha will provide many moons and countless pots of fat-fighting, immunity-boosting dark tea. Try soaking your Yahoo stock certificates in hot water and drinking the juice - tastes like hubris.

Unsurprisingly, the Shanghai Index's early 2008 tumble dealt a death-blow to the rampant over-speculation propping up the Pu'er market. As the year draws to a close, there is still tangible evidence of the carnage. A three-story, eight-thousand square meter building in Maliandao was devoted exclusively to Pu'er shops during the bubble. Today, more than half of its stores are locked and empty, a few packing crates and fold-outs littering the once busy floor-space. The rest have only proprietors in them, who perk up hungrily at the occasional window shopper.

Mr. Chen sits in one such shop in the now half-deserted building, but with quiet dignity rather than despair. His well-honed nose for Pu'er, as well as the good sense not to over-extend during the boom times, have left him a survivor. He can tell a two-year old from a twelve-year old Shou Pu'er at fifty yards, and has managed to hold on to good stock. He can show you a bingcha from a Menghai factory that went for 10 RMB when the madness started in 2003, went up over 1000, but even today could fetch 500. The beauty of Pu'er is that the longer you sit on your holdings, the better off you'll be. He can also show you a little 100 gram fang, or square of Pu'er that he bought for 1 RMB back in 1992, that today can easily be sold for 1000.

According to Chen and other experts, there will always be big long-term profits in Pu'er, now that the market has been widely established. Better yet, a potential investor needn't worry about scouring the Financial Times or lonely nights of fundamental analysis. The better it tastes, the more it's worth, and will be worth down the road. Best of all, there's not a tea shop in the land that will refuse you the pleasure of sitting down and sampling three, five, even twenty teas, depending on your schedule and bladder capacity. In these days after the correction, a nice new cake will set you back 30-50RMB. So factoring in a free education, and twenty years to watch a few thousand kuai turn into a few million, you're looking at the tastiest investment in China.