Haiwan Tea

Zou Bingliang (邹炳良) joined Menghai Tea Factory in 1957, was its director from 1984 and retired in January 1997. Ipucha says he helped set the process standards for the 7572 and 7542 recipes and helped register the Dayi (大益) trademark in 1989. Lu Guoling (卢国龄) joined in 1959 and, per Haiwan's own account, was deputy director and chief accountant from 1987 until retiring in 1996. After retiring, both became chief pu'er production advisers to the Yunnan tea import-export company of China National Native Produce & Animal By-products (puercn).

In late 1999 they set up 安宁海湾茶业有限责任公司 in Anning, near Kunming, with four other investors and a small (13 mu) site (puercn). The registered address is now in the Kangle tea market, Guandu District, Kunming. Related companies are 云南海湾茶业有限公司 and 勐海海湾茶业有限公司. The main brand is Lao Tong Zhi (老同志), with Jiajia (加嘉) and Haiwan Liangpin (海湾良品) alongside it. Product names follow the four-digit pattern of the state factories: Teasenz says the '99' in the 9948 raw recipe marks the 1999 founding and that Zou first released 9948 in 2008.

Brand directories say Haiwan has exported about 800 t a year since 2003 and that Zou was honoured in Beijing in 2007 as a 'lifetime achievement master of Chinese pu'er' (company-supplied claims). Note: the digits on Haiwan products are its own recipe names, not Menghai/CNNP mark numbers, and do not include a state factory code.