Yunnan's provincial state tea trading company, founded 1938. It held export rights, ran the mark-number system, sold the big factories' pu'er under the 中茶 label and later the Jixing brand.
《时代担当 砥砺奋进》 (CNNP-side) and 《中茶、大益、下关：聊聊普洱茶品牌三巨头》: 1938, 云南中国茶叶贸易股份有限公司, founded 16 December 1938 according to the first. 《李映青：滇红与抗战》: 6 December 1938, written 云南茶叶贸易股份有限公司. 《中茶集团的历史——昆明茶厂》: 16 December 1944, as 云南茶叶公司. 《滇红》 credits Feng Shaoqiu with founding the company in 1938, while the other sources call it a joint venture of two state bodies.
COFCO's 2008 release presents 云南中茶茶业有限公司 as a new investment by COFCO China Tea, unveiled 9 March 2008. The CNNP pu'er account (《时代担当 砥砺奋进》) treats the 1938 company as its first name. Community sources say 中茶 returned under COFCO in 2006. Treat the two as related but not proven to be the same legal entity.
The company began on 16 December 1938 (company account) as 云南中国茶叶贸易股份有限公司, a joint venture of the national China Tea Corporation and the Yunnan provincial economic commission, based at 威远街208号 in Kunming. It set up the experimental factories that became the Fengqing (1939) and Kunming (October 1939) tea factories. In 1950 it was taken over and reorganised as the Yunnan company of the China Tea Corporation. In 1972 it merged with the provincial native-produce import-export company.
The result, a Yunnan branch of the China National Native Produce & Animal By-products Import & Export Corporation, is usually just called the Yunnan provincial tea company. In 1973 it won the right to export pu'er itself, and that year it sent Kunming, Menghai and Xiaguan staff to Guangdong to learn pile fermentation. The state factories were its subordinate factories, and its mark numbers (recipe, grade and factory digit) appear on export cakes. After the 1988 trade reform it was named 中国土产畜产云南茶叶进出口公司.
The brands need care. 中茶 is the national China Tea mark (registered 1951; eight-中 logo from 1952). The provincial company registered its own 吉幸 (Jixing) mark in 1980. From 1992 it ran a departmental contracting system, which the 《普洱》 magazine blames for confused wrappers and marks. It began producing tea in its own name in 1993. In 1994 it co-founded the Xiaguan joint-stock company. After Kunming Tea Factory stopped production in 1996, the 中茶 mark was licensed widely until 2003, and counterfeits multiplied. From 2003 to 2006 the provincial company stopped using 中茶 and sold under 吉幸. From 1998 to 2001 it also ran the Lincang Prefecture Tea Factory as its Lincang branch.
In 2006 the 中茶 mark returned under COFCO. On 9 March 2008 COFCO China Tea unveiled a new subsidiary, 云南中茶茶业有限公司 ('中茶云南'), licensed to use 中茶. Company-side histories trace that firm back to the 1938 company. The COFCO announcement itself does not mention the provincial import-export company, and the legal relationship between the two has not been confirmed.
