The Myth of the Taiwan Businessman

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Sometimes online dating sites really pay off. I have a date with a Taiwanese businessman! 
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Female for Male

Age: 55-75

Tea Drunk looking for Businessman in Taiwan for random absurd romping.

You: collecting tea cakes since 1980s minimum, private commissions etc. Older just tastes better. Looks not important. Loose preferred over tight, but it's more about how good it's stored. Stash required.

Me: I'm a lover of all things tea. Smart, lighthearted, let's go anytime attitude. Into numbers like 7542, 2469 and 8241, will 8582. Wife OK, not looking for husband, just wanna get into your stash and see what you have. No I'm not an escort, you got the tea, then honey I got the time.
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Holy cow, I got 73 responses!

Had no idea that so many Taiwanese businessmen with private commission tea cakes even exist.

The only problem is sorting out the real ones from the blokes just looking for a way to get a green card. Not that I object to such goals. But how will I know I'm getting the real deal, the guy with the stash? The guy who really did commission his own cakes, the guy with so much money to spend on tea that he maybe forgot to pick up his tea orders from Hong Kong? Or Guangdong. Or Kunming. This is the guy I want to find and Is He Real?

Via emails and messaging I figure out which ones know a Red Mark from a Yellow Mark, so right at the get-go I weed out quite a few fakers and idiots, bringing my list down to 54 candidates. Next, I discuss aging. I can hit a two-fer with this topic: old tea and by extension, dating really old women like myself. Wow, that plan hits 'em out of the park and now I'm down to just 27. I suspect that some of these remaining guys might be trying to sell me something, you know, cheap cell phone cases or maybe even fake tea in hugely expensive wrappers. Gotta ask, how many of you have bought a tea cake in packaging that includes Yellow Satin? Sure enough, now I'm down to just 8 candidates, an auspicious number and a much easier list to deal with specifics about each individual. I suggest moving the discussion of where-to-meet in real life off the dating site and over to one of the social websites, hoping to find out more.

Turns out they all have their own websites, tea blogs, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Steepster, Teachat, Tumblr, Twitter, and a few more I need to run through a translator on Chrome past my 3rd grade level kanji. Some of these guys even have alternate avatars to reply "off the record" to all of the above, doubling or tripling the amount of reading I have to do. How can I possibly weed out who the True Taiwanese Businessman really is?

I ask for photos. Not of him, of the stash. After all, the whole point of owning expensive tea cakes is the show-off factor. The only issue at play here is that show-off photos are meant for men. Like around here where I live, they post photos of their black Ford F-150 or white Avalanche like a pheasant with tail feathers in the way that women post photos of their Murakami cherry blossom Louis Vuittons, but who wants to look at those? Never mind. The point is tea photos are the male locker room which isn't prepared to admit women. I try and be respectful even though I know, and they know, that I'm a greedy tea drunk woman at the core, so if they got the real goods then I'll likely be impressed. So what's to lose?

Lo and behold, they all have Menghai Red Mark cakes. Cause everyone needs to have at least one Maserati. Cloud can help me out with the Tea Criteria. At least five of the eight guys have Simplified Characters, their 7542 paper is Thick and Rough, their backsides are Hand Stamped, and their Junior has a Green Mark. Oh baby. But people, I hate to say it, the mark of the Real Man is gonna come down to his Tuos. Yes it does. Sticks and pods? So long. New papers? See ya. White wrapping? Can't be bothered to put on my dress. No wrapping? Not at my age. Bamboo straps? Now we're talking...

The only problem is, all eight guys have ALL of the above. How can this be? Sure enough, they say in all earnestness and most definitely they left that stash in Hong Kong, Guangdong AND Kunming. All three places. They'll send me whatever, whenever, at no cost. Well one guy tries to give me a Paypal address anyway. I just can't believe there can be this much private commission, no-label tea floating around, not to mention all those Red, Green, Yellow, Blue and probably Magenta Marks too. I'm sitting here Ready and Waiting to 3rd Tenet tea, lord I need me a cuppa and what's a girl gonna do?

Seems the best idea might be to sample widely, very appealing at my age. I can also pour me another round and wait for something better to come along. But then I remember the age-old wisdom which I'll call the Advice of the Old Tea Whore. Turn off the lights, hold your nose and try not to swallow.

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