CNNP teas and State factory teas

[mbanu]

A postcard ad explaining the Temple of Heaven brand gunpowder green tea options available in paper packets instead of tins.

[mbanu]

Now this one is a puzzler, a postcard ad for Bi Luo Chun, but there does not seem to be either Zhongcha or any local brand marks (Sunflower, Temple of Heaven, etc.) Was there a transition period between the two, or was this tea treated specially?

[mbanu]

The Palace brand, which was mentioned in older writings semi-frequently. I've never seen any tins, which makes me wonder if this was a paper packet-only brand. Is it still made?

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First, I am curious when Sunflower started selling shoumei white tea; according to the 1957 list, it either was not exported then or was sold as a green tea. This is a little confusing for me because in the pre-nationalized era sow mee was a grade of tea that could be applied to tea from a few different places, so it is not clear if the placement in the 1957 export list is to clarify that it is not being made as a white tea, or something else.

A postcard ad example of what I mean. Is "Special Sowmee" shoumei, or a green tea of the sow mee grade? Not helping matters is that while the ad is for the Shanghai Tea Branch, the brand is Sprouting, which is associated with the Fujian Tea Branch today.

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Sea Dyke before Sea Dyke! A pamphlet for tieguanyin before the brand was in use, apparently.

[Bok]

Sea Dyke before Sea Dyke! A pamphlet for tieguanyin before the brand was in use, apparently.

that's some nice retro grapics – me like!

[Bok]

A postcard ad explaining the Temple of Heaven brand gunpowder green tea options available in paper packets instead of tins.

This brings back memories... drinking lots of this crap many, many years ago

[mbanu]

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?

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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.)

[mbanu]

A 2020 export catalog from ChinaTea! Butterfly, Sunflower, and Sprouting all being used concurrently to sell jasmine tea, and also Sea Dyke and Monkey King -- there must be some sort of pattern behind which mark goes where???

[mbanu]

The strange thing about their flavored tea section is that it does not seem to have rose congou or lychee congou. When the State factories de-nationalized, did Guangdong/Golden Sail cut all ties with ChinaTea? Also no loose tea, only teabags. "Polygonatum Broken Silver Pu Ehr" is a new one to me, though. Any ideas of what this might be?

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0008, CTW-304, and CTW-305 look like they might be old-style liu bao tin designs, I'll have to see if I can find some older versions of these. Interesting that there is no branding listed other than ChinaTea, although it looks like on those baskets there might be a brand that is just not stated for some reason...

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Pu'er section -- I've had 7581 bricks, but those cakes I am not familiar with. Has anyone had a 7451 or an 8581? What are they like? Also, Sea Dyke pu'er? How does that work???

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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...

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Oolong tea section. As expected, a lot of Sea Dyke. The coding pattern .m. mentioned for Sea Dyke in the past seems to be mostly the same today. DunHuang is a new brand to me, though -- does anyone know anything about it?