Tea in a basket

Liu Ann tea, another type of black tea which ages with time, is a national tea of Anhui. The tea is unique in a way as the tea is loaded into a small bamboo basket and covered with dried bamboo leaves. Six baskets of Liu Ann tea are bundled together in a row and sold to customers. It can also be sold as individual basket of Liu Ann tea. This tea has a fragrance resembling that of fragrance rice, very pleasant to drink and enjoy its fruity taste. The ones produced in the 50s and 60s are very costly and they came with a piece of red paper with calligraphy of the name of the tea.

Here is a sample of Liu Ann tea in its original packaging. It was produced during the early 1980s.

Liu Ann tea in its original packaging

Comrade Lei Feng 雷锋同志

Lei Feng (18 December 1940  – 15 August 1962) was a soldier of the People's Liberation Army of China. It was said that he died while steering his horse driven carriage to avoid a crowd and crashing into a lamp post. After his death, Lei was characterised as a selfless and modest person who was devoted to the Communist Party, Chairman Mao Zedong, and the people of China. In 1963, he became the subject of a nationwide, posthumous propaganda campaign "Follow the examples of Comrade Lei Feng" (向雷锋同志学习).

There is a figurine depicting Lei Feng steering the carriage in a difficult position. The figurine was made during the Cultural Revolution. It was a sought after item of Cultural Revolution due to its design and artistic style that captured the character of a brave and dedicated soldier who lived in a time of turmoil.

Comrade Lei Feng 雷锋同志

Yichang brand mushroom tea

Yichang brand is a famous brand of puerh tea produced in Chang Thye Tea Factory. The word Yichang combines the word Yi from Yiwu (a famous tea producing region in Yunnan) and Chang  from Chang Thye (the factory). It is well known brand among tea collectors and there are also fakes in the market that imitate the genuine tea.

Here are some Yichang mushroom puerh tea produced in the early 90s. The tea has a pleasant fragrance. With time, the tea will age to develop its fullest potential.

Yichang puerh mushroom tea

Tibetan Mushroom Puerh Tea

People who live in the Tibet region of China cannot survive without the regular supply of puerh tea from the southern province of Yunnan. They have a very unusual way of brewing the puerh tea. They mix the tea with milk, butter and other dairy products and boil everything together into a thick drink. If you are not used to this type of tea brewing, the smell of it can surely put you off. But the Tibetans do need this tea drink as the region seriously lack vegetables and stuff that will provide them a balance a diet as they do eat a lot of meat. Just imagine, if your diet consists mainly of heavy stuff (like meat and cheese), you need fruits and vegetables to balance your diet. This is the reason why in the past, the Chinese used the tea from Yunnan to exchange for horses from Tibet. There is also the legend of the ancient tea horse road 茶马古道.

From around a thousand years ago, the Ancient Tea Route was a trade link from Yunnan, one of the first tea-producing regions: to Bengal and India via Burma; to Tibet; and to central China via Sichuan Province. In addition to tea, the mule caravans carried salt. Both people and horses carried heavy loads, the tea porters sometimes carrying over 60–90 kg, which was often more than their own body weight in tea.

It is believed that it was through this trading network that tea (typically tea bricks) first spread across China and Asia from its origins in Pu'er county, near Simao Prefecture in Yunnan.

The route earned the name Tea-Horse Road because of the common trade of Tibetan ponies for Chinese tea, a practice dating back at least to the Song dynasty, when the sturdy horses were important for China to fight warring nomads in the north. (Source:Wikidpedia)

In the 1980s, Menghai factory resumed production of the traditional puerh tea meant for the Tibetans in the shape of mushrooms. The famous brand is the 'Baoyen' brand which is shown here.

Tibetan puerh tea.

 

 

 



 



Four happiness puerh

This is known as the four happiness puerh tea. It came in a 4-piece package put in a box. The four happiness in Chinese characters "Fuk, Loke, Sou and Shi" which means Prosperity Fortune, Longevity and Happiness. Each piece weighs 250gm and the total package weighs a kg.

4 happiness puerh tea

7562 puerh tea bricks

This small little puerh tea in the form of a square tile weighs only 100g. It is made in 1992 in the Menghai factory.

This is no ordinary puerh tea as the ingredients used to make this tea came from the type of tea leaves used to make the famous 7562 tea bricks. If you don't know, 7562 was the tea produced in the year in Menghai factory when the Cultural Revolution ended (around 1967 to 1968), which means more than 40 years ago. 7562 pueh tea bricks were made from grade 2 broad leaves using the green puerh method but with improved production formula. The tea brewed from 7562 puerh bricks  was known to be excellent in taste and fragrance.

According to Deng SH, a renown puerh tea expert from Malaysia (now based in Taiwan), Menghai factory had mass produced this tiny puerh tiles in 1992 using the production method and formula of 7562 puerh bricks. He commented that this puerh tiles are made from green puerh tea leaves. Hence, this puerh tiles are worth keeping. In time to come, this tea is going to develop into puerh tea of excellent quality.

Puerh tea that follows 7562 style of production

Above are some puerh tea tiles made in 1992.

Puerh bricks mature with years of storage

Two more puerh tea bricks of good quality which were made following the ripe puerh method. After many years of storage, the taste and fragrance had matured. It is a delight to serve the tea hot.

Ripe puerh made in the 90s

Ripe puerh made in the 80s

If you cannot wait 30 or  more years for green puerh to develop to its fullest potential, why not keep some ripe puerh which needs about 4 to 5 years to develop the distinctive puerh taste and fragrance. Of course green puerh tea that is matured naturally is of a different class, but no one on earth can wait so long to taste the tea. Old green puerh tea, on the other hand, is too costly and generally beyond the reach of ordinary tea drinkers. One has to strike a balance when appreciating puerh tea for its excellent taste and fragrance. For example, you can buy some quality puerh (not to new) and enjoy the tea now while store piling some green tea for future consumption.