Big Green Toucha

Yifong is a tea factory in Yunnan that uses clean technology and equipment to manufacture puerh tea. The tea manufactured from the factory is of a high standard and quality.

Below are some big touchas that weigh a whopping 400g. The compressed touchas are made from high quality puerh tea leaves and made according to the green puerh method. The year of manufacture is 2003. A total of 4 touchas are bundled in dried leaves and sold to customers.

Green touchas made in 2003

Toucha of the 80s

Xiaguan is famous for the production of toucha, puerh tea compressed in the shape of a bowl. The tea from Xiakuan is well received by tea drinkers due to its high quality. The toucha comes in 100 g weight size and seven of them are bundled into a wrapper and sold to customers.

Here are some 100g toucha made in the early 80s with the wrapper on them.

Xiaguan toucha of the 80s

 

 

 

Guangdong Puerh (Guang Yun Puerh Tea)

In the 1950s, Yunnan district had to send a fair bit of puerh tea to Guangdong (southern province of China) for processing into puerh tea for the world market. The reason is that Guangdong is sea port where merchant ships all over the world came here to load and unload their cargo. If the tea was processed here, I would be easier for the tea producers to export their tea. This gave rise to the so-called GuangYun Gong Ping (Yunna puerh tea from Guangdong). This practise went on for decades until the late 1980s or early 1990s. Now the province of Yunnan no longer supplies puerh tea to Guangdong for processing. GuangYun puerh tea has now become antiques.

Here is a piece of GuangYun puerh tea made in the 1970s with it wrapper intact.

Yunnan tea processed in Guangdong

 

Green Puerh 7542

There is a method used by Menghai factory to identify the puerh tea produced. It has a 4 digit number represented certain key information about the tea, such as the factory it vame from, the year of production, the production method, the quality of tea leaves used the type of puerh tea whether green or ripe.

7542 is the code for puerh tea made in Menghai factory using green puerh tea. It is the most popular tea produced by the factory in large quantity to quench the thirst of people all around the world. The most famous of this particular brand is the 88 green tea purchased by a certain Mr Chan from Hong Kong. It was said that he bought over 200000 pieces of this green tea for a very low price. Over the years of storage, the taste and fragrance of the tea improved, and so was the price. Now if you possess one 7542 made in the 80s, you can probably be laughing all the way to the bank. It is quite valuable.

Here are some 7542s made in 2003.

7542 green puerh made in 2003

Green puerh of 1995

Menghai factory produces large quantity of both ripe and green puerh tea for the world market. It comes with many shapes and sizes but the most popular shapes are the round disc shape and the rectangular brick shape. The factory was privatised in 2004 and the private sectors take over the production of puerh tea for the world market.

Here are some puerh bricks produced prior to the privatization of the Menghai factory. The raw puerh tea bricks were made in 1995 and wrapped in a bundle of 4 pieces.

Green puerh bricks made in 1995

Old Panjang 2

Another old panjang puerh tea made from green tea leaves harvested in the old panjang district of Yunnan. It is in the shape of round disc and the tea literally translated as tea biscuits.

Panjang green puerh tea from this comapany

Old Comrade (老同志) tea

This brand of puerh tea was started by the ex-manager of the Menghai tea factory in Yunnan. After he retired from the factory with many years experience in the manufacturing of puerh tea, he left the Menghai factory and set up his company to made and sell puerh tea. It was said that he knew everything about the puerh tea business due to the many years he spent at the factory. He was a production worker at the factory and eventually became the factory manager to oversee the tea production.

First batch of tea 老同志 without wrapper

Above is the 老同志 tea produced in his factory. Notice this tea does not have a proper wrapper to promote the name of 老同志 (old comrade) as this were the very first batches of tea produced in the factory and he had not even designed the wrapper for the tea yet. So the tea bricks were wrapped in plain brown paper with the brand name (老同志) written on the outside.The tea was launched in the market without any promotion being carried out. There was a little bamboo sticker inside the tea bearing the name of this retired ex-manager of Menghai tea factory.

The factory also produces green puerh tea. Below is the picture of 老同志 puerh green tea made in 2003. The tea has become collectors favourite tea.

老同志 green puerh manufactured in 2003