The packaging of Puerh

Puerh is an interesting tea. The packaging of puerh is uniquely different from all other tea types produced in China. No other tea type has such a diversification in packaging.

The packaging of the tea into various forms and sizes is both complex and interesting. For instance, it can be sold in loose form or compressed shape. In the compressed form, it can be shaped like bricks, square tiles, biscuits, bowl, mushroom or golden melon. It can also be loaded into a section of bamboo and sold as bamboo puerh tea.

Loose puerh tea

Common shapes of puerh tea

100 g square puerh

250 g bricks, 4 in a bundle

Unusual form in bamboo

Golden melon shape

Not only the shape of compressed puerh tea is so diversified, it is also sold in different sizes ranging from a few grams to a few kilograms. The smallest being 3 to 5g in small toucha and tiles.

Little square bricks of 5g

This tiny toucha is good for single brew

Huge antique golden melon puerh from the Qing dynasty

Ever wonder why puerh tea is processed into compressed tea that take so many shapes/sizes?

The Horse Gang on Tea Horse Trail

The photo above showed how puerh tea was transported from Yunnan to the rest of the world. As horses were the only means of transportation, the puerh tea was compressed into the shapes and sizes that horses could carry. This gave rise to the Horse Tea Trail that traced the path of tea merchants in the early days as tea was transported to the rest of the world through mountainous terrain and rocky path. It was easier to transport solid compressed tea over long distances of several thousand kilometers. Sometimes it took these merchants (called the Horse Gang) more than a year to complete the journey on horses back. The journey was very tough as the merchants would face harsh terrain (through mountains) and dangers from the attack of wild animals and robbers. Some had even lost their lives halfway through the journey. This is what make the tea previous and valuable during those days.

Currently, the puerh tea is processed into 7-a-piece bundles and 12 bundles are contained in a bamboo basket called 1 piece. Each piece of bamboo basket will carry a big ticket detailing the year of manufacture, the label such as 7542 and the total weight.

7 pieces of puerh cakes in a bundle

One Piece (Zhi) contains 12 bundles

Big ticket inside the basket

Xiaguan tea factory produces toucha which is packaged into round boxes for the European market.
 For local market, five touchas each 100g are wrapped up in a bundle in brown bamboo leaves or paper.

Puerh bricks also packedin paper boxes in the 80s

Four happiness puerh tea

Huge melon puerh tea

Featuring the Olympic Games in Beijing

Unusual size of 500g in this raw puerh

Now, puerh tea cakes also come in non-conventional sizes, 500 g to 3 kg weight are not uncommon.

This raw puerh cake weighs 3 kg

Big and small square puerh tea are available for your selection. The choice is really unlimited. The packaging has also improved significantly. It is ideal to buy puerh tea as a gift set to give it to your friend on your return from a tour to China.

Puerh with date fragrance

Wonder why in this puerh brick, the leaves look so rough and rugged?

Date

This is known as the puerh tea with the date fragrance. Although the tea leaves may not look impressive, but the tea from this puerh gives off a certain aroma. It resembles the fragrance of date. I am sure most people have eaten date. It smell and taste like date. Hence people call it date-fragrance puerh (doesn't make sense when translated literally).

To get the fragrance out from the tea, you need very hot water to brew it. The tea is best consumed when it is hot.

Again aged puerh tea of this type can be costly as not many of such tea is around. People tend to consume good tea so fast that it is impossible to replenish the tea.

Tibetan Panzhan puerh tea

In 1980, Tibetan religious leader, Panzhan, visited the Xiaguan tea factory. He expressed the view of most Tibetans to the management that they had not tasted the real puerh tea (raw puerh tea aged in the natural way) for a very long time. He visited the factory where  cooked toucha was made. He was disappointed that only this type of  cooked toucha (Xiaguan is famous for producing toucha) was available for his people to drink. As Tibetans did not have vegetables in their diet, they had to rely heavily on puerh tea to complement their diet. They could not survive without puerh tea. They really appreciated the goodness and benefits of good old aged puerh from the past. And Tibetans have a unique way of brewing their puerh tea, the mix the tea with milk and herbs, etc.

Panzhan, a religious leader from Tibet, visiting Xiaguan factory

Xiaguan factory understood the need of the Tibetan people in their pursue of raw puerh tea. In 1981, the factory had specially made a batch of raw puerh tea just for the Tibetans. The tea was processed and compressed like a mushroom with a the brand Boyan. The tea was nicknamed the Panzhan compressed tea.

The so-called Panzhan puerh tea

The Panzhan tea was only made for the consumption of the monks in Tibet and none of the tea was available for sale to the outside world. Later there were some Panzhan compressed tea from the ware house that went to private collectors' hand. This tea was made from grade 2 tea leaves harvested from puerh tea trees. As the tea was processed as raw tea in the compressed form, the tea was solid. After more than 20 years of ageing, the tea has a deep brown colour and a very pleasant aroma.

Since this first batch of mushroome-shaped puerh ta, the factory also made several batches of the mushroom tea due to market needs in the 90s. However, the very first batch of the Panzhan tea had certain historical value apart from being good aged puerh tea.

Panzhan tea with Boyan brand

When I visited Yunnan in 2003, we were brought to a tea house to appreciate and buy tea. As the sale persons were busily introducing Chinese tea in a small room, I sneaked out (I did not like the hard sell tactics of the sales persons) and found a lot of Mushroom compressed tea on the shelves of the tea shops. The tea was very reasonably priced, not like the tea the sale persons recommended inside the room (while doing the usual tea demo/promo). Without hesitation, I cleared the mushroom-shaped tea on the shelves. When we left the tea shop, the tour guide even told me if I wanted more, he could arrange the tea to be sent to our hotel on our return to Yunnan. Amazing thing was that he could get the tea at the same price for me. I could not refuse such an offer. Hence I was able to collect over a hundred pieces of the compressed Panzhan tea.

Tea demo in tea shops in Yunnan

I had since tried some of the Panzhan tea on my return home. The tea was indeed raw puerh tea and both the aroma and taste were remarkable. That was more than 12 years ago and the taste was fresh and the fragrance was good.

Puerh in the western world

As tea drinking is getting wide acceptance in the western world as a daily ritual, people would like to find out more about Chinese tea. They often would like to try out different types of tea when they visit tea shops in the western world.

The potential health benefits and antioxidants of Chinese tea are well known among western consumers. While there are so many wonderful teas available, it is expected that puerh tea will make big wave in tea market of the western world due to active push in marketing this tea. The reasons are simple. First, it is influenced by the booming puerh trade in Asia. Second, several prominent leaders in preventive medicine talk about the health benefits from puerh in the media and this has attracted a lot of interest from people in the west.When their knowledge of puerh grow, so will their acceptance of this extraordinary tea.

Refilling the cup with hot water and pour out brewed tea

From the rich geographical and historical background to the enticing aroma from aged puerh tea (not to mention the intrinsic value), puerh provides western consumers an exciting avenue for personal enjoyment as well as a great hobby (in collecting different types of puerh). The large number of web sites on puerh by western people is evident that the tea is indeed very well received in the western world.

Western cuisines are generally high in cholesterol and adipose. This inevitably creates a market for puerh since the tea is well-known as a removal of fat and cholesterol. No wonder many tea companies are trying to position themselves for the booming business in puerh tea.

The early experience of puerh usually comes from Chinese dimsum restaurants serving customers cooked puerh tea with a distinctive nature. Some described it as ... this dark red tea has a bold, earthy flavour, the most oxidised form of tea or tea that has a unique smell and flavour. Of course consumers nowadays have had more choices of different types and grades of puerh, from a varity of tea producing mountains in Yunnan of China. Incidentally, this part of China is the only habitat for puerh trees. There are even tour agencies that organize tour to the tea producing regions of Yunnan for tea lovers. You can even make and compress your very own puerh cakes or bricks.

Unfortunately, a big problem in puerh tea is that the market is full of fake products, untruthful information and marketing tricks. For examples, cooked puerh tea is sold as vintage puerh, toucha from an  unknown source is sold as Xiaguan toucha, Guan Yuan cake of the 80s are sold as those form the 60s. Common marketing trick is to use pictures featuring young ethnic girls standing on tea trees and plucking leaves and then labeling the tea as harvested from ancient tea trees and pricey puerh delicacy. In a market like this, consumers often spend big money to buy so-called vintage puerh, and later find out that the tea is no more that fake or cooked puerh of inferior quality that has musty smell and unpleasant taste. Stories like these are not only common in the west, but all over the world. Such business activities undoubtedly undermine the future of puerh in the western world. As with any interest or hobby, especially one involving a language barrier, there will be many opportunistic vendors trying to take advantage of the uniformed. Just remember, possessing knowledge and experience will help alleviate certain worries and make collecting and drinking puerh tea enjoyable and rewarding.

Through online stores and online auctions such as ebay, consumers now have access to many newly produced puerh tea products. These tea products are a lot more transparent to the consumers as their prices from different suppliers are gradually becoming similar. Howeevr, puerh tea that is aged many years are still rare on the market. Some good quality new puerh tea can be hard to come by if the tea is from a certain puerh region/mountain. Such tea will inevitably be more expensive than the average tea. Another factor is the age of the tree, the older the tree the more sough after is the tea. For tress of 500 to 800 years old, the tea will command a good price. If the trees are wild trees grown in the forests of Yunan, the tea will be classified as wild puerh tea and this will further enhance its value.

Puerh brick in 500 g packaging

250g bricks in one box of 160 pieces

Pheonix tea

Apart from the well known XiaQuan brand of  Tor Cha, there is another popular brand of Tor Cha (puerh tea compressed in the shape of a bowl) in the 1980s. It is known as the pheonix brand Tor Cha produced by the Nanjian tea factory in Yunnan.

Since setting up factory in 1985, Nanjian factory started producing Tor Cha with the help of technology and expertise from the XiaKuan factory. Later the factory started producing their own line of products known as the pheonix Tor Cha.

When the state stopped interfering in the running (tea transactions) of the tea factories in 1985, individual company began their own purchasing of raw materials and selling of tea products.

As companies rushed to procure raw puerh tea in 1989 in anticipation of a price hike, Nanjian factory acquired  a large amount of raw materials in their ware house. As a result, there was a cash flow problem which caused the company to collapse in 1997. Today the old phoenix bowled tea can hardly be seen in the market.

With privatization, the Nanjian factory is given a new lease of life. The new phoenix brand of Tor Cha again finds its way into the tea market.

The old pheonix tea is fragrant and pleasant to drink. This accounts for its popularity among tea drinkers. As a result, the old brand is revitalized even after the factory had collapsed.