CNNP teas and State factory teas

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A packet pu'er ad! Anyone know anything about these three?

*Edit: The internet suggests that the small patterned boxes are old packaging for Y562 cooked pu'er, and the small yellow boxes are old packaging for Y671. Any idea on the large boxes? Given the color of the brewed tea, process of elimination would say some kind of raw, but I really have no idea.

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Y562 I believe was one of the very early ripe pu-erhs (late 70s). I love the design of that box. I do wonder if those brands/labels went totally dormant and then were later revived for various export markets, maybe banking on nostalgia/association with old designs much like is done with the old liu bao boxes now. According to a more recent batch that Yunnan Sourcing has for sale:

"Lucky Brand is a 2000-2005 CNNP Brand logo. Most of the teas produced under the Lucky Brand were ripe pu-erh teas fermented in the Yiliang Tea Factory just 45 minutes outside of Kunming. Fermentation was done by the factory director Mr Bai Xiong (also an ex Menghai tea factory person).

Yiliang tea factory teas have a aromatic nature, some bitterness and are described by many Chinese pu-erh industry experts as having a kind of "roast-dried broadbean taste"."

I have a box from I believe 2002 or 2004 of Y671 where they still use that same design. I should probably take it out of the plastic and give a couple air holes in the bag and let it breath, its probably getting quite sour otherwise. I have seen more recent boxes/tins with that recipe number listed online, one being a Russian export production in very different packaging, other being a 100g tin that looks totally different and was very overpriced.

[mbanu]

Y562 I believe was one of the very early ripe pu-erhs (late 70s). I love the design of that box. I do wonder if those brands/labels went totally dormant and then were later revived for various export markets, maybe banking on nostalgia/association with old designs much like is done with the old liu bao boxes now. According to a more recent batch that Yunnan Sourcing has for sale:

"Lucky Brand is a 2000-2005 CNNP Brand logo. Most of the teas produced under the Lucky Brand were ripe pu-erh teas fermented in the Yiliang Tea Factory just 45 minutes outside of Kunming. Fermentation was done by the factory director Mr Bai Xiong (also an ex Menghai tea factory person).

Yiliang tea factory teas have a aromatic nature, some bitterness and are described by many Chinese pu-erh industry experts as having a kind of "roast-dried broadbean taste"."

I have a box from I believe 2002 or 2004 of Y671 where they still use that same design. I should probably take it out of the plastic and give a couple air holes in the bag and let it breath, its probably getting quite sour otherwise. I have seen more recent boxes/tins with that recipe number listed online, one being a Russian export production in very different packaging, other being a 100g tin that looks totally different and was very overpriced.

Good info! It's interesting that these pu'er are known by their catalog numbers while compressed pu'er is usually cataloged by the 4-digit trading code. Maybe compressed pu'er did not have catalog numbers? I hear that there are trading codes for loose pu'er that are 5-digits long rather than 4-digits, but maybe these were not included on pre-packaged teas?

*Edit: Of course compressd pu'er must have a catalog number, as they are listed by catalog number in the 2020 ChinaTea catalog. The whole subject is very confusing.

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Is 1032 the catalog number? Maybe it is a grade like with pu'er?

With the "China Green Tea" it looks like it is indeed a catalog number. Here is a tin from the Sprouting brand with the mark G401, and a postcard watermarked from a message-board I've never heard of that seems to explain that G401 was for the 100 gram tin and G402 for the 300 gram.

Hmm, or maybe it was a mixture of both -- it looks like the landscape on the tin was used to clarify the grade, but the catalog number also changed. This looks like a modern version of a G403 or G404 (without anything for scale it is hard to tell for me).

Some clarification with the cardboard packet versions of Ever-Green chunmee! It looks like when you have two identical packages where the only difference is the color, there's a good chance that the color change is supposed to distinguish the grade of tea. Here we have a Chunmee 9366 and a Chunmee 9367. Supposedly the Chunmee grade range goes from 9366 to 41022, with 9366 being on the far end and 9367 being the grade next to it. However, it's not really clear what these grades measure. With the British grading system, for instance, the main thing being graded is the size of the broken leaf, as this was important for tea-blenders to know in the era when someone buying from a distance might have to buy a tea without a photograph of it. On the other hand, some grading systems are used to measure quality of a tea -- does anyone out there know much about these grading systems? (Or are they more like pu'er trading codes?)

Also an early glimpse of the "cigarette packet" size, so popular in West Africa.

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Some teabags from 1980, also featuring Sprouting brand lychee and rose congou, and Hainan black tea, which I don't normally hear anything about for some reason...

A promotional photo of Hainan tea from the Lingtou Tea Plantation in 1974.

Also a picture of a Hainan bag-wrapper from an unknown date, although using the older "Kwangchow" Romanization for Guangzhou.

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Is there such a thing as counterfeit gunpowder green tea? It really does seem hard to believe, given how much gunpowder the state factories seem to produce, but then there are these odd look-a-like brands... Maybe from a less popular State factory?

Green tea section. Interestingly there is no Sprouting brand gunpowder -- was this discontinued before 2020, or is trying to reach the gunpowder market with Fujian tea a new thing? Also, no mention of the big players like Camel or Temple of Heaven, although that two-camels-and-a-palm mark looks suspiciously like a copycat...

In one case, at least, it was indeed from a less popular State factory! The doubletriple-camels is actually a brand of the Hunan Tea Branch for their green teas. (Monkey King being their brand for jasmine teas and some black teas, and Hundred Dragons seeming to be originally a black tea brand but now used for a few different things.) If Zhejiang developed the Camel brand in 1990, when did Hunan develop the "Safinet e' Sahraa" brand?

In two cases! This is the Lucky Bird brand, which was developed in 1997 for the Anhui Tea Branch to use for exporting green teas. (They privatized in 2001, which is why the mark on the top is the weird look-a-like Zhongcha.)

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Although the slogan is "The Well-Known Tea", I actually had a lot of trouble with this one. This is a 1988 ad for Bao Ding Brand tea, which was apparently a brand of the Shantou Tea Import & Export Corporation. I actually had a bit of trouble trying to figure out what a Bao Ding even was -- apparently a type of old-fashioned cooking vessel? Also the wrapper to one of their pu'er teabags of an unknown age, and another with their slogan, which I suspect is also pu'er, as I think that was the only well-known "slimming tea" that Guangdong produced.

*Edit: Apparently the pu-erh labeled bag is the new(?) version, as showcased by blogger Wilson in 2014. Or maybe the "The Well-Known Tea" is an herbal blend? Does Bao Ding still make tea using "The Well-Known Tea" packaging?

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A modern tin of Keemun tea from "Shanghai Tiantan International Trading" which is the name the Shanghai Tea Branch started using after de-nationalization, I think. Interesting in that it does not seem to use any local brands, just a Zhongcha on the top. I still haven't figured out the pattern for who uses which brand when... In the 1957 ad it looks like they were still using square tins for Keemun, when did they switch to cylindrical ones, I wonder?

A red-label Keemun tea in a cylindrical tin with Tea Branch branding. If my guess from a previous post is correct, this would be a different grade of Keemun than the yellow-label.

Also, a group shot with many familiar characters. Ever-Green chunmee in both tin and paper packet, Temple of Heaven gunpowder, red-tin Keemun (although it looks like the pattern was in gold rather than on a white background) and a paper packet variety, jasmine tea in loose and teabag form (and maybe a higher grade Butterfly-brand jasmine?), Palace black tea, and a few mystery-brands, such as the tower in the foreground, Dragon brand teabags, Camellia black tea, and the tin in the top right (oolong, maybe?)

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Although the slogan is "The Well-Known Tea", I actually had a lot of trouble with this one. This is a 1988 ad for Bao Ding Brand tea, which was apparently a brand of the Shantou Tea Import & Export Corporation. I actually had a bit of trouble trying to figure out what a Bao Ding even was -- apparently a type of old-fashioned cooking vessel? Also the wrapper to one of their pu'er teabags of an unknown age, and another with their slogan, which I suspect is also pu'er, as I think that was the only well-known "slimming tea" that Guangdong produced.

*Edit: Apparently the pu-erh labeled bag is the new(?) version, as showcased by blogger Wilson in 2014. Or maybe the "The Well-Known Tea" is an herbal blend? Does Bao Ding still make tea using "The Well-Known Tea" packaging?

Happy you mention them. It's not only teabags that were produced under the Bao Ding Brand by Shantou Tea Imp. Exp. Corp.. Sometimes around the late 80's early 90's, they've released also some good TGY and Puerh in brass caddies with carvings. Sorry, no pictures on me.

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I've been starting to poke around for the most drinkable shu teabags I can find for when I'm in my studio or out and about, so I've got some of the Bao Ding bags on their way to me once the mail holiday is over. I've seen also jasmine and 'oolong' in the same box with green and orange labels. also a second oolong ti kuan yin in a different box, I'm guessing slightly 'higher grade' as far as a teabag goes:

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Here are an old Sunflower brand lychee congou, and a new Golden Sail brand lychee congou -- the packaging is essentially the same other than the logo on the top. I wonder, what is the story behind these standardized tin designs?

An ad for Sunflower brand lychee congou and paper-packet rose congou, and also some Sprouting brand rose congou in tin form. I wish I knew more about them -- does anyone know anything about the history of these two tea-styles?

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Or maybe the "The Well-Known Tea" is an herbal blend? Does Bao Ding still make tea using "The Well-Known Tea" packaging?

Whatever it is, there is a good chance it isn't pu'er. In 1984, China took out a paid ad in the New York Times for something non-tea-related, but they snuck this little ad in the corner of their larger ad. It lists out pu'er, pu'er in tuos and bings, but The Well-Known-Tea is separate. Unless that was their specific name for pu'er teabags, then it must have been something else. (*Edit: It sounds like it may have been an oolong-herbal blend?)

"Lemon Tea" was apparently a reference to a type of instant tea, most likely to compete against Nestea in Hong Kong, who was promoting it in commercials around that time. (Anyone heard of "kooloo tea" before? Apparently it is also called "Gulao tea".)

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(Anyone heard of "kooloo tea" before? Apparently it is also called "Gulao tea".)

Not much help, but an ad from 1988 with a picture of the box for a Sprouting brand Kooloo, and an older ad from a new one to me, "Three Friends brand", that seems to describe it as being similar to a scented black pekoe tea?

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A Sunflower brand long jing tin. This one is a bit puzzling as I had thought Sunflower belonged to the Fujian tea branch, not the Zhejiang. Was it originally a shared brand of some sort? Are old CNNP tins collecting counterfeits now?

Some help from the Zhejiang Tea Group, which seems to be the website for the de-nationalized version of the Zhejiang Tea Branch (although somewhat astonishingly for a Chinese tea website, it has an HTTPS connection!)

In 1983 they created a brand specifically for longjing tea, the Shifeng brand, so that tin was from before then.

(They also mention that the Camel brand for gunpowder was created in 1990.)

An example of a Shifeng longjing, and more!

Apparently there was another brand at one time, Goldfish brand Lung Ching. It looks like it existed at the same time as Sunflower, but I'm not sure what the difference was...

(Also, in case anyone is wondering, "Vitamin P" is an old term for what are now called flavonoids -- I'm not sure what they did to lose their vitamin status. )

Some advertising shots from 1988 that include Shifeng packaging and maybe Sprouting on the left and Goldfish and maybe Sunflower on the right, also one of longjing being made. It looks like by this time the idea of serving long jing in a glass had caught on?

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Some teabags from 1980, also featuring Sprouting brand lychee and rose congou, and Hainan black tea, which I don't normally hear anything about for some reason...

A promotional photo of Hainan tea from the Lingtou Tea Plantation in 1974.

Also a picture of a Hainan bag-wrapper from an unknown date, although using the older "Kwangchow" Romanization for Guangzhou.

An ad from 1988 for the loose-leaf variety of Hainan black tea. Interesting in that this is the first CNNP ad I've seen that tries to be fashionable -- I'm sure those models were quite up-to-date for the time.