A Tea enthusiast spent 1200 RMB on a cake of Bingdao Ba'ai ancient tree tea and noticed a line of ink on the wrapping paper, assuming it was due to unclean packaging. He went back to argue with the tea seller.
The tea seller took photos of the remaining Ba'ai ancient tree tea packaging for the customer to see. It turned out that the line of ink was intentionally placed there by the tea seller as an anti-counterfeiting measure.
Sellers of genuine Ba'ai ancient tree tea supervise the entire process from picking during Spring Tea season to production in the mountains and then transporting it back to Kunming, ensuring the authenticity of the product.
To prevent others from counterfeiting their products, the tea seller deliberately printed a few drops of ink on the packaging of their Bingdao tea. However, this led to a misunderstanding after the customer bought the tea.
Behind this incident lies the ongoing problem of identifying genuine ancient tree tea, which troubles every tea seller.
When you ask a tea seller in a store if they can identify ancient tree tea, they will surely say: yes, they can.
They might talk about the processing techniques, the buds and leaves, the leaf base, the color of the tea infusion, or even the “hoof prints” used to identify ancient tree tea.
However, these methods cannot reliably determine whether a tea is from ancient trees or not.
When comparing ancient tree tea and younger tree tea produced using the same methods from the same tea garden, the ancient tree tea does indeed have a better “Qi” (vital energy).
But the term “Qi” is nebulous and subjective. While one can taste the difference when comparing two teas side by side, without a standard measurement, it's like not saying anything at all.
Currently, once ancient tree tea leaves the tree, there is no reliable method to distinguish it.
In the future, the solution to identifying ancient tree tea may lie in blockchain traceability technology. However, its widespread application will take some time.
Until then, the only way to verify ancient tree tea is to go to the tea mountain and oversee the production. There is no other method.
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