Xishuangbanna pu'er group grown from a 1998 tea house; its 1999 Yichang Hao Yiwu cakes marked the arrival of private makers alongside the state factories.
The company timeline and the Taiwanese tea business Shi Kun Mu Classic Tea Culture date the founding tea house to 1998, and ipucha's Yichang Hao article also says 1998 for the tea house and 1999 for the factory. Ipucha's survey of private factories and a seller's Sohu article give 1999. The group's own introduction says 1998 but also mentions a 20th anniversary in 2019. The 1999 date most likely refers to the factory and the first Yichang Hao, not to the trading company.
The company article puts the Yiwu branch and the first Yiwu cakes in 1998. The Taiwanese tea business Shi Kun Mu Classic Tea Culture says production began in October 1999 and the '99' batch ran until about March-April 2000, with '00' and '01' batches pressed across the turn of each year. Because of this, the '99/00/01' labels on collector cakes do not line up with calendar years.
Founder and chairman Chen Shihuai (陈世怀) had been head of the supply-and-marketing section at the Dadugang Tea Farm (大渡岗茶场) before going private, according to a seller's article; the company timeline has him planting his own gardens in Xishuangbanna in 1993 and founding the Shuanggang (双岗) tea factory in 1995, which made green tea. In 1998 the old trade name Hengfengyuan (恒丰源号, which the company dates to 1906) and the Sanhe tea house (三合茶社) were combined into 云南昌泰茶行.
In 1999 it released Yichang Hao (易昌号), old-tree Yiwu sheng whose name joins the first characters of 易武 and 昌泰; the Taiwanese tea business Shi Kun Mu Classic Tea Culture dates the first pressing to October 1999 and says it ran under the name of the Yiwu branch. The "99 Yichang" came in Song-style and seal-script wrappers, each in three grades, and early cakes weighed well under the nominal 400 g. Jiemian credits the tea house with the 99 Yichang series and dates the 云雾圆茶 line to 2001. From 2000 the company added a Jinggu branch, the everyday Changtai Hao label, ripe-tea fermentation and the registered Hengfengyuan trademark.
In 2004 it became 云南昌泰茶业集团, which it calls the first pu'er group company in Yunnan, adding the aged-tea labels Weirong Hao and 百年陈仓. In 2007 it opened a large new factory and bought the Jiangcheng tea factory and the Longling Longmei tea factory. In 2017 it named Yichang Hao, Changtai Hao and Hengfengyuan its three core brands. The group site gives its headquarters as Dadugang Township, Jinghong; subsidiaries include companies in Xishuangbanna (among them 西双版纳易武茶叶有限公司) and in Simao.
Collectors note that 1999-2002 Yichang vintages are hard to tell apart and that labels and years drifted apart after the 2005 boom, so vintage claims on Yichang cakes need care.
