What is in the number 7542

You probably have heard of 7542, 8582, 7452, 7562, 7581, 7653, 7633, 7643, 8653, 8663, etc. The first 3 sets of numbers may sound familiar and the last few may be unheard of.

These are all puerh tea cakes made according to some recipes or formula. The first 2 set of numbers represent two very popular puerh green tea cakes while the third is a puerh cooked tea.

7542 green puerh made in 2003

After 1950, the making of puerh tea in China came under the control of the state. There were 3 state-run factories involved in the making and marketing of puerh tea. These are the Kunming Tea Factory, Menghai Tea factory and Xiaguan Tea factory. The management of these factories met and agreed to use certain set of numbers to represent the tea each factory produced. The last digit of the 4 numbers represent the factory the tea was made, the first 2 digits were the year and the 3rd digit was the grade of the tea leaves used.

The last digit 1 was used to represent Kunming Tea Factory, 2 for Menghai Tea Factory and 3 for Xiaguan Tea Factory. Hence 7542 puerh tea cake was used to mean that the tea was made in Menghai factory in 1975 using grade 4 tea leaves. 7581 tea cake meant the tea was made in the Kunming factory in 1975 using grade 8 tea leves and 7633 tea cake was made in the Xiaguan factory in 1976 using grade 3 tea leaves. This seemed to be a fantastic idea to distinguish puerh tea cakes produced in different factories. But the initial implementation of this method of identifying tea products met with confusion and inconsistencies.

Menghai Tea Factory

Today you will find the Menghai factory still makes puerh tea cakes using the label 7542 or rather follows the original recipe of 7542 to make the puerh tea cakes. Why?

The legendary 88 green cake is a 7542 cake

The reason is simple. The 7542 raw puerh tea cakes are well received by tea drinkers. Some of the earlier batches of 7542 tea cakes are very costly, like the 88 green cakes (7542 made in the late 80s) which are the darlings of the 7542 puerh cakes. Due to popular demand, the Menghai factory continues to churn out large quantity of 7542 puerh tea cakes. Eventually the 7542 cakes become the industry standard. Hence you will find  the 7542 tea cakes made in the 80s, 90s and 2000s as well. Tea collectors know that the 7542 tea cakes are hot favourite, so many stock up the tea cakes in anticipation of a price hike.After the 7542 tea cakes, the 8582 puerh green tea cakes are the next most popular raw puerh tea cakes. Collectors also start putting their money in the 8582 tea cakes. They also stock up large quantities of 8582 tea cakes waiting for the price to appreciate in the years to come. Now these numbers like 7542 and 8582 are more like recipes where tea factories follow in making their tea. They have lost the original intention of distinguishing the tea in terms of year of production, the factory and the grade of tea leaves used. Moreover the Kunming Tea factory ceased operation many years ago. With new tea enterprises emerging in the market, some will just use their trade marks or tea labels. Only Menghai and Xiaguan continue the tradition of using these well-known recipes to make tea.

7581 bricks made in Kunming Tea factory

Another famous tea is 7562, the bricks made before the end of cultural revolution in the 1970s. The factory later also produced little square puerh tea bricks (100g weight) following the 7562 recipe. These are tea worth collecting due to their remarkable quality.

Interesting Puerh Tea Wrappers

Just as diversified as the shapes of compressed puerh tea, the wrappers used to wrap up the puerh tea cakes are both complex and interesting.

Prior to privatization, the tea manufacturing was controlled by the state. There was collective purchasing of raw materials, tea production and export by state owned enterprises. The tea labels and wrappers mainly depicted the character Cha (Chinese for tea). The printing of Cha  was in different colour to denote the different batches produced. The most valuable is the Red label, then the green, followed by the yellow label.

Green label

Yellow Labels

Red Label tea cake

New product also featuring the character Cha

After tea manufacturing was privatized in 2004, there was a surge of private enterprises engaging in the making and marketing of puerh tea. There was a  craze for puerh tea (where prices jumped a few hundred percent), both for consumption and collection. This craze lasted couple of years until the climax in 2007 followed by the unexpected crash shortly where prices of puerh tumbled. Prior to the crash, there was such a great variety of puerh products in the market. These tea products, be it cakes , bowls or bricks, were fascinating in terms of labels and wrappers.

The wrappers on the puerh cakes were exciting. The manufacturers designed and printed the wrappers using various themes and ancient stories to promote their tea products. Stories from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms were use to produce tea wrappers. Hence, you see ancient generals like Guanyu, Huangzong, Zhouyun, etc, featured on the puerh cakes. The strategist Zhugeliang also appeared very often in these tea wrappers. Of course the legend had it that Zhugeliang was the person who first started the puerh cultivation in Yunnan as he used the tea to cure his soldiers suffering from sickness in this part of China while he was establishing a foothold for his boss, Liubei of the Shu Han.

Zhaoyun, a famous war general

The master of strategies, Zhugeliang

Guanyu, a famous general of Shu Han

The use of such wrappers that tell the stories of the era during the Three Kingdoms period had its motive. If you like the characters of the Three Kingdoms, undoubtedly you would collect all the tea cakes that were on offer. Moreover collecting puerh tea was known to be rewarding, as its prices escalate overtime. This reminds us of stamp collecting. Once you collect certain type of stamp, you will end up collecting all the stamps of that nature. The tea producers would then see a market need for their products. A very clever strategy, like a scheme devised by the legendary Zhugeliang in the story of Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Other theme also focused on native villagers harvesting tea leaves, processing tea or making tea. The wrappers were exquisitely designed and printed. This makes you want to collect them the way you collect art pieces. If you collect all these tea cakes, you might even want to open an art gallery to show off your collection. This is tea mingling with history and art.

Tea production

Beautiful oriental ladies also commonly featured in the tea wrappers as a means to attract buyers.

There was even one tea producer capitalizing on the famous tea mountains of Yunnan to sell his products. He had all the famous 6 mountains in Yunnan printed as tea wrappers to market his tea. Maybe his aim was to promote his tea as coming from the famous tea producing regions of Yunnan. In case you still do not know the famous tea regions in Yunnan, it is good to take a hard look at the labels. On hind sight, this may be good for tea drinkers as they were educated or reminded of these renown tea regions while enjoying their favourite cup of puerh tea. But then who would want to open up the wrappers to consume the tea if the wrappers were so pretty and artistic.

The famous tea regions of Yunnan

There are just too many different types of puerh tea wrappers in the puerh trade. If you start to collect them, you might end up with a wonderful collection. This is puerh tea culture, history, art and tea in one. You can start an art gallery to showcase your collection.

The horse gang Ma Bang

Zhugeliang with his feather fan

Unfortunately, I did not indulge in this craze for I do no have a deep pocket. Also it was not possible to hunt for this tea products as not all the tea importers share the same view. If they do not import a complete set of tea products with all those designed wrappers, then there is no way you can have a good and complete collection.

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.