Pressed tea and pu'er codes

一Why pu'er is pressed#

Compressed tea is older than pu'er as a category: it travels well, packs densely and keeps. GB/T 22111-2008 recognises pu'er as raw (生茶, shēngchá) or ripe (熟茶, shúchá). Ripe pu'er comes loose (散茶, sǎnchá) or compressed (紧压茶, jǐnyāchá); in the standard, raw pu'er exists only as compressed tea, and loose raw leaf is classed as sun-dried maocha (晒青毛茶) rather than as pu'er. Compression follows the same steps for both. Weighed leaf is softened briefly with steam, pressed in a mould or a cloth bag 布袋, and dried. That is the 蒸压 (zhēngyā) method; see steaming and pressing.

Compression varies with equipment, pressure, moisture and the chosen format. Stone pressing, 石磨压 (shímòyā), and a cloth-bag knot can produce a familiar cake with a depression on the back, but machine pressing is not synonymous with an iron cake: Xiaguan’s account in the Ministry of Commerce’s time-honoured-brand museum describes successive generations of tuocha pressing machines. The dense 铁饼 (tiěbǐng, "iron cake") is a particular format, not a diagnosis of every machine-pressed tea. Shape or a dimple alone does not authenticate the pressing method. Claims that denser cakes necessarily age more slowly need evidence about storage and the tea itself.

Pressing also standardises. Fixed shapes and weights let factories count, tax, pack and price tea by the piece, and that bookkeeping logic still shapes how pu'er is sold and quoted.

Pressing can also be a separate commercial stage. In Zhang’s 2007 fieldwork in Yiwu, primary processing produced loose dried maocha; subsequent processing steamed, shaped, pressed, dried and packed it. She followed a trader who selected maocha from particular mountains and supervised its processing into finished cakes. A cake therefore has several possible makers: the grower, the primary processor and the business commissioning or carrying out pressing need not be the same. When tracing a lot, ask who performed each stage, rather than treating the wrapper name as the identity of its grower (Zhang 2014, pp. 55–57, 61).

二Shapes and weights#

The cake, 饼 (bǐng), is the classic format. 357 g is a common conventional weight, and 100, 200, 250, 400 and 500 g cakes are common, with presentation pieces up to several kilograms. The 沱 (tuó) is a bowl with a deep hollow underneath; 100 g and 250 g are the classic sizes, and the format is tied to Xiaguan, whose tuocha technique is listed as national intangible heritage. Tuocha was first made in Xiaguan by the Yongchangxiang (永昌祥) firm, and Xiaguan's 7663 is a 100 g ripe tuo.

The 砖 (zhuān, brick) is rectangular, usually 250 g, and also 100, 500 and 1,000 g; Kunming's 7581 is a 250 g ripe brick. The 方茶 (fāngchá) is a square tablet of 100 or 200 g, often with characters pressed into the face. The 紧茶 (jǐnchá) is a mushroom-shaped piece of about 250–300 g with a stem instead of a hollow, made for the Tibetan market; the Kangzang factory at Xiaguan made it from 1941, under the 宝焰 (Bǎoyàn) trademark from 1942. The 金瓜 (jīnguā, golden melon) is a large rounded piece with ribbed sides, after the Qing tribute pieces in the Palace Museum. The 龙珠 (lóngzhū, dragon pearl) is a small hand-rolled ball of about 5–10 g, sized for one session.

Format and weight are among the few things on a pu'er listing you can check yourself. Weigh what arrives.

三357 g, the tong and the case#

The seven-cake bundle has Qing roots. A rule of 1735 (Yongzheng 13), cited from 《大清会典事例》, fixed Yunnan merchant tea at seven round cakes to a 筒 (tǒng), weighing 49 两, and 32 筒 to a 引 (yǐn), the tax certificate. The 《清史稿》 version reads 七斤 (seven jin) to a 筒 instead, a known textual variant. At the Qing treasury tael of about 37.3 g, 7 两 per cake comes to roughly 260 g, so the Qing rule fixed the count, not today's weight (our arithmetic, not in the sources).

357 g is a modern figure: seven cakes make 2,499 g, about 5 市斤 (shìjīn) of 500 g. The name 七子饼茶 (qīzǐbǐng chá, "seven sons cake tea") replaced 普洱圆茶 on export wrappers in the early 1970s; sources give 1970 or 1972.

A 件 (jiàn) is a shipping case. The traditional case is 12 tongs, 84 cakes, about 30 kg. Dayi now packs 357 g cakes seven to a paper 提 (tí) rather than a bamboo-husk tong, and the case count varies by run: six 提 (42 cakes) for 2012's 201 batch, 2017's 1701 and 2023's 2301, but four 提 (28 cakes) for 2014's 1401. Older productions such as 2007 701 trade in 84-cake cases. Market quotes are per case or per 提, so always check the count before dividing. The site converts every quote to a price per 100 g.

四Tickets, wrappers and their limits#

Factory pu'er carries several printed pieces. The 内飞 (nèifēi) is a small ticket pressed into the surface of the cake during compression (earlier ones were stuck on), bearing the factory or brand mark. The 内票 (nèipiào) is a larger loose slip under the wrapper with factory and product information. The 大票 (dàpiào) is a batch certificate packed with a case, giving batch, quantity and tea type. The 筒票 (tǒngpiào), a ticket in the tong, has been rare since about 2000. The wrapper itself carries the brand, recipe code and, on modern factory tea, the production date and standard number.

All of these were meant as proof of origin, and all have been forged. Menghai has added security features against counterfeits: English Wikipedia dates microprinting and embossing of its neifei to the late 1990s and early 2000s, while a vendor account citing the factory dates an anti-counterfeit label and neifei to 2006, upgraded in 2007 and 2010. In April 2021 Shanghai police announced the seizure of more than 10 t of counterfeit brand-name cakes and over 20,000 fake wrappers; the online shop had sold famous cakes for about ¥200–800, one of them a 2003 cake once valued above ¥1 million. A real wrapper proves only that a real wrapper exists; genuine wrappers can be reused on other tea.

See Reading pu'er wrappers and neifei for the pieces in detail. Read tickets as evidence to cross-check: the recipe code, batch, production date and case ticket should agree with each other and with what the factory and market records say about that production.

五The four-digit recipe code#

The 唛号 (màihào, mark number; 唛 transliterates English "mark") was an export system. Yunnan's provincial tea company held a province-wide meeting in 1976 and issued document 云外茶业字第84/45号, setting codes for 18 teas and requiring the Kunming, Menghai and Xiaguan factories to use them; a formal notice to all factories followed in 1978. One trade account dates the numbering to 1975 instead. The company is variously named in sources as the Yunnan branch of China National Native Produce and Animal By-products Import and Export Corporation, or simply the Yunnan Tea Import and Export Company.

For cakes, bricks and tuos the code has four digits. The first two give the year the recipe was set, the third the grade of the main leaf, and the fourth the factory. 7542 is the 1975 recipe, grade 4 leaf, Menghai; 7572 is its ripe counterpart; 8582 and 8592 are 1985 raw and ripe Menghai recipes; 8653 is Xiaguan's; 7581 is Kunming's 1975 ripe brick. Loose tea used five digits, with two for grade.

The grade digit describes leaf size and tenderness on a scale where lower is finer, not quality as such, and writers disagree on whether it is the blend's average or its top grade. Xiaguan uses the third digit for type rather than grade. Some later codes, such as 7262 and 7222, follow neither year nor grade. Finally, the code names a recipe, not a production: the same number has been printed by other factories, and CNNP 7542 is not Menghai 7542.

六Factory digits, and where sources disagree#

Chinese sources agree on four factory digits: 1 for the Kunming Tea Factory, 2 for Menghai, 3 for Xiaguan and 4 for the Pu'er Tea Factory (普洱茶厂), which one trade account says was set up as a state factory in April 1975. Where that factory stood, Simao or the old Pu'er county seat, is not settled by the cited sources. Jiemian adds their present-day successors: 1 is now the Yunnan arm of Zhongcha (中茶, China Tea), 2 is Dayi, 3 is the Xiaguan Tuocha group and 4 is the Yunnan Pu'er Tea Group. The reference author Shi Kunmu lists only 1 to 3, as does the Chinese Wikipedia article on 唛号, and one Sohu explainer limits 4 to cakes.

English-language sources diverge. English Wikipedia, citing nothing for the list, gives 4 as Lancang or Fengqing, 5 as the Pu-erh Tea Factory, 6 as the Six Famous Tea Mountains company and 8 as Haiwan or Longsheng. None of the Chinese sources consulted supports this. The most likely explanation is that private factories from the late 1990s borrowed the format and assigned their own digits, which were then read back into the original scheme. Treat digits 5 and above as later, informal conventions, and treat the English mapping of 4 and 5 as doubtful.

For the three original factories the digit is a reliable reading aid. It is not proof of who made a cake: a 2 on the wrapper says the recipe belongs to Menghai, and only the rest of the evidence says Menghai pressed it. See Menghai Tea Factory, Xiaguan Tea Factory and Kunming Tea Factory.

七Menghai batch numbers#

A recipe is made many times, so Menghai prints a 批次 (pīcì, batch) number. Up to the 2000s it used three digits: the last digit of the year, then a two-digit run. 701 is 2007, first run; 702 the second; 801 is 2008, first run. Xiaguan-style hyphenated codes read the same way: 8653-602 is recipe 8653, 2006 second run. Four digits followed: 1401 is 2014, first run, and 2201 is 2022, first run. No source from the factory dates the switch. 2012 runs are written 201, 202 and so on. For 2013 both forms circulate: a Taiwan vendor gives the first 8582 run as "1301, also written 301", pressed 22 to 26 January 2013; Yunnan Sourcing writes "301" in a product title and "1301" in the date field; and the 找找茶 market database files 2013 7742 under 1301. From 2014 the four-digit form is the norm. Chinese Wikipedia adds that Menghai's year and batch digits became irregular after 2003, so treat any single code as one piece of evidence.

Two cautions. A three-digit code is ambiguous by decade: 701 could be 1997 or 2007, so read it with the wrapper style and printed date. And the first run of a year is often valued more, on the belief that it uses better maocha; that is a market belief, not a documented quality difference.

The site decodes Menghai batch numbers and checks them against the recorded year, the printed production date, the listing's stated year and any batch in the vendor's title. Disagreements show as "Worth checking". See 2007 Dayi 7542, batch 701 and 2022 Dayi 7572, batch 2201.