Pu'er tea How to determine the age of Pu'er tea? In the market, one often encounters the "Zhongcha" brand red seal round cake sold as a product from the 1940s. However, the "Zhongcha brand" trademark was actually registered in Beijing in December 1951. There are also "Panchen compact tea" products from 1980 appearing on the market, but Panchen only visited the Xiaguan tea factory in Yunnan in 1986, so it is impossible to have a 1980 "Panchen compact tea."
The so-called "Phoenix tuo tea" from 1970-1980, labeled as produced by the Nanjian tea factory, is actually from a factory established in the 1980s. Some places sell "Yunnan Pu'er brick tea" from 1957, but in fact, Yunnan only began producing this type of tea in 1977, with only the labels 7581 and 7811, and these numbers were never printed on the packaging. Some products claiming to be from 1967 or during the Cultural Revolution are also unreliable.
For determining the age of Pu'er tea, consider the following aspects:
1. Look at the appearance of the tea leaves
New Pu'er tea has a fresh appearance, with white down and a strong aroma. After prolonged post-oxidation, the tea leaves turn date-red, and the white down becomes yellow-brown.
2. Distinguish the color of the packaging paper
Typically, compressed aged Pu'er tea has packaging paper that has yellowed over time. You can assess the aging of the paper by looking at the texture, handmade fiber pattern, and the degree of ink fading. However, this is only a reference and not absolute, as unscrupulous merchants may use aged-looking paper to wrap inferior products.
3. Understand the age classification of tea products
Generally, the age of Pu'er tea is divided as follows:
Tea produced before 1949 is called "antique tea," such as the century-old Songpin Hao, Tongxing tribute, Tongqing Hao, Tongchang old brand, and Songpin Jing Hao. These often contain a small piece of glutinous rice paper inside the tea cake with the name printed on it, known as "neifei."
From 1949 to 1967, China's tea industry produced "stamp-grade" tea, where the tea character on the packaging was marked in different colors: red for the first batch, green for the second, and yellow for the third.
After 1968, the tea cake packaging no longer bore the name of the China Tea Company, and each factory began producing its own tea, collectively referred to as "Yunnan seven-cake tea," including Snow Seal green cake, 73 green cake, large-mouth small green seal, small yellow seal, etc.