Collector’s Vault

CA-001 Crab-Legs Seven-Cake Raw Pu-erh

Material Year: Material 2003 (label)｜Pressed: unlabeled｜Repack: Gudao Tea Factory, Pu’er

This cake belongs to the first export batch of Zhongcha “Crab-Legs” seven-cakes, the earliest entry in this family collection. Its wrapper carries the classic “Eight-Zhong” design — a tea character encircled — an icon of China’s tea-export history. A red square seal reads “Crab Legs” (Korthalsella lobbii), a mistletoe known as “tea crab” that grows only on aged tea trees; its presence is a natural indicator of ecological purity, and in Jingmai and Bulang tea gardens it is traditionally picked by Bulang and Dai communities to brew alongside or apart from the tea. The label records raw material of 2003, repacked by Gudao Tea Factory in Pu’er with a second inspection before release. At twenty-three years of material age, this cake stands where medicinal aroma begins to rise — the golden entry segment of the aging curve. Oil stains and paper darkening on the wrapper mark the quiet work of time. Originally cellared in Kunming, Yunnan, then relocated in batches to Hong Kong.

• Cake
• Raw (sheng)
• 357g±
• SC11453080222520
• Wrapper: “Eight-Zhong” tea-character mark + red square seal “Crab Legs” + blank handwritten sticker
• Condition: wrapper lightly damaged at edge (leaf visible)
• Remark: neifei inner-ticket photography pending
• Rarity: pending assessment

Close

CA-002 Grade-A Aged Raw Pu-erh · Green Print

Material Year: Handwritten sticker “1990s” / label “material 1980s” — dual provenance recorded as-is｜Pressed 2022-06-18

A core member of this collection. The wrapper’s arcing red characters “China Tea Corporation” and green Eight-Zhong mark revive the vocabulary of the 1950s Grade-A Round Cake — a revival aesthetic, unrelated to tea age. A handwritten red sticker notes “1990s Grade-A Aged Raw”; the reverse label records material gathered in the 1980s, pressed June 2022 by Yunnan Zhongcha’s Menghai factory. Both vintages are recorded as they stand: collector’s note from the 90s, factory declaration from the 80s — adjacent decades, both true, final vintage awaiting the neifei. Material pressed after nearly four decades of cellaring begins its transformation from a high plateau; by the saying “thirty years to the summit,” this cake already stands within old-tea territory. The Grade-A designation belongs to the pre-national-standard grading tradition of the Zhongcha system. Red Print, Green Print, Snow Print, 88 Qing, 8582 — the acknowledged Menghai star lineage. Originally cellared in Kunming, relocated in batches to Hong Kong — the classic mid-age aging path.

• Cake
• Raw
• 357g
• Yunnan Zhongcha Tea Co. Menghai Factory
• SC11453282245726 (light-print 151727/151731 as recorded)
• Condition: wrapper lightly creased, some characters obscured
• Note: vintage pending neifei verification; **not in first auction consignment before finalization**
• Rarity: Class I (Grade-A line + aged material fresh-pressed)

Close

CA-003 Year-2000 Red Print Aged Raw Pu-erh

Material Year: Material 2000-04-18｜Pressed 2022-06-18

The Red Print is the head classic of the print-grade lineage. This cake’s label records material gathered April 2000 and pressing June 2022 — a pair of dates twenty-two years apart. The year 2000 marks the watershed when Pu-erh turned from the diaspora-trade tradition toward the mainland collecting market; material from this segment is now regarded as prime mid-age stock. Cakes of this period are noted in market records for sweet, full-bodied liquor — testimony to the cellaring value of millennium-era material. At twenty-six years of material age the cake climbs the long slope from “medicine at ten years” toward “summit at thirty,” its transformation now stabilized after 2022 pressing. The “YUNNAN CHITSU PINGCHA” panel and rich bilingual wrapper make it a fine specimen of the contemporary print-revival wave — visual memory of the print grades, aged-material depth, and modern repack standards meeting on one cake.

Originally cellared in Kunming, relocated in batches to Hong Kong.

• Cake
• Raw
• 357g
• Yunnan Zhongcha Menghai Factory
• sc11453282243728
• Wrapper: Red-Print-style paper + “YUNNAN CHITSU PINGCHA” English panel + handwritten red sticker
• Note: red gift-box set context
• Condition: wrapper intact (shrink-wrapped)
• Rarity: Class II

Close

CA-007 Legacy · Yu Zhengcai 999g Commemorative Cake

Material Year: Material 2016｜Pressed 2023-11-15 (red inkjet)

A 999-gram commemorative cake and a signature work of portrait-tea: the wrapper folds a tea master’s lifetime into one biography. The golden timeline begins “1937, born in Guangdong,” notes tea studies at Dali Agricultural College in 1956, and graduation in 1959 to the Menghai Tea Factory — the “Whampoa Military Academy of Pu-erh.” By 1983 Yu Zhengcai served as party secretary and deputy director of technology; the 1988 entry records the planting of the Bada and Bulang mountain tea estates and participation in the benchmark 8582 recipe — the cake later crowned “88 Qing.” Further entries credit the 92 square brick, the 88 Qing cake, and the Peacock raw cake; in 2005 he founded Yuyuan Tea Factory as the industry entered its group-corporation era. The state-era Menghai factory drew fine one-bud-two-leaf material from its own Bada and Bulang estates — the estate strategy behind stable, high-grade recipes. Four commemorative layers stack here: non-standard 999g, edition of 699, relief plaque, handwritten signature. Material 2016 now stands ten years old — crossing “treasure at seven” toward “medicine at ten.”

Originally cellared in Kunming, relocated in batches to Hong Kong.

• Cake in wooden casket
• Raw
• 999g (non-standard)
• Publisher: Yunnan Yunke Ancient-Tree Tea Co.
• Maker: Xishuangbanna Yuyuan Tea Co.
• SC11453282215557
• Features: biography-timeline wrapper + “Legacy” calligraphy + hand signature + edition of 699 + casket plaque + YP® mark + portrait
• Condition: wrapper intact (photographed on gold velvet)
• Rarity: Class I (portrait tea + limited + non-standard)
• Line: portrait tea

Close

CA-008 Zhongcha Red Print Brick

Material Year: Material 1980s (label)｜Pressed: unlabeled

The brick transplants the round cake’s seal motif onto a rectangular form — an extension of Zhongcha wrapper vocabulary across formats. The reverse label records 1980s material, 500 grams, repacked by Gudao Tea Factory with second inspection. Two keywords set its position: 500 grams, a non-standard format; and 1980s material — four decades old, already within the “thirty-years-to-summit” peak segment. Bricks were born for the road: compact and stackable, they rode the Tea Horse Road where round cakes would roll; pressed harder in wooden or iron moulds, they transform more slowly — the slow-aging route. The 357-gram cake itself derives from the seven-cake tally (one tong of seven, twelve tong to the load), a system inherited from Qing-era tea houses; the 500-gram brick steps outside that frame as an independent quantification, naturally scarcer. The dual signatories — material factory and repack factory, each responsible on one label — mark the repack system of the 2000s. Round seal on square brick: an “round-heaven, square-earth” design note.

Originally cellared in Kunming, relocated in batches to Hong Kong.

• Brick
• Raw
• 500g± (non-standard)
• Gudao Tea Factory, Pu’er repack
• SC11453080222520
• Features: red round-seal motif + Eight-Zhong mark + red border + reverse white label
• Note: pressing year unlabeled (material 1980s per label)
• Condition: crisp impression, label complete
• Rarity: Class I

Close

CA-010 Banzhang Arbor Ecological Tea · Reserve

Material Year: Material 2004｜Pressed: unlabeled

A heavyweight of the mountain-origin line. The wrapper pairs arcing red characters “Banzhang Arbor Ecological Tea Cake” with its English rendering, a green “CERTIFIED ORGANIC OFDC SEPA” roundel, and a 1995-series processing certificate number. OFDC — the Nanjing Organic Certification Center — is China’s authoritative organic body; in the early-2000s Yunnan tea scene such certification was scarce, earned through soil, process, and traceability audits. Banzhang itself needs little introduction: Lao Banzhang village in Bulang township, Menghai county, 1,700–1,900 meters, a Hani settlement dating (by record) to 1476; its five villages command the “tea king” reputation for forceful cha-qi and wild-mountain character. Organic certification layered on the Banzhang name makes double scarcity — ecology, mountain, and certification on one verifiable quality chain. The reverse label records 400 grams, material 2004, repacked by Gudao Tea Factory. At twenty-two years the cake runs steadily in the “medicine at ten years” segment with the long slope of “thirty years to summit” still ahead.

Originally cellared in Kunming, relocated in batches to Hong Kong.

• Cake
• Raw
• 400g± (non-standard)
• Menghai Tea Factory issue; Gudao Tea Factory repack
• SC11453080222520
• Features: OFDC organic medallion + 1995-series processing certificate no. + “Reserve” + “Yi” ® mark + arced English maker name
• Condition: wrapper intact
• Rarity: Class I (Banzhang + early organic + non-standard)

Close

CA-011 Intangible-Heritage Che Shun Hao

Material Year: Material 1990s｜Repacked 2024

This wrapper deliberately mimics the antique: a vertical multi-column prospectus in the manner of Qing-era tea-house notices, signed “Respectfully, the Master of Che Shun Hao,” stamped with a black square “Original Auction Piece” and a round “Reference Sample Tea” seal. Che Shun Hao is an old Yiwu house. The tribute-map context: of the six ancient tea mountains, “Yiwu holds half a mountain” — some 750 square kilometres woven from seven villages and eight stockaded hamlets; in 1744 the court entered Pu-erh into the Tribute Register, Yiwu was appointed the tribute procurement ground, and the “Tribute to the Dynasty” plaque stands as the historical credential of that honour — the very plaque Che Shun Hao’s name is tied to. The label records 1990s material repacked 2024 by Yunnan Yiye Tea Co. Vintage-brand replica over 1990s material — thirty-plus years of age, at the entrance of the summit segment. The reference-sample seal marks this batch’s specimen character within the repack system; the “non-sale” heading and its original label vocabulary belong to the piece’s circulation history — a separate matter from present auction eligibility, pending source confirmation.

Originally cellared in Kunming, relocated in batches to Hong Kong.

• Cake
• Raw
• 357g
• Yunnan Yiye Tea Co.
• SC11453010300141
• Features: antique-style vertical “fangdan” prospectus + “Intangible-Heritage Tea / Vintage-Grade Treasure” + “Che Shun Hao Master” + reference-sample seal
• Condition: wrapper intact
• Rarity: Class I

Close

CA-012 Haiwan Zou Bingliang Signed · Menghai Wild Tea

Material Year: 2005-04-18 (wrapper date; material & press)

On the wrapper, the four characters “Supervised by Zou Bingliang” beside a hand-signed name. In portrait-tea collecting a signature is a craftsman’s guarantee in ink. Zou Bingliang, former director of the Menghai Tea Factory, steered the house through its golden age: the 7542 benchmark recipe — “the yardstick of raw Pu-erh” — took form there, and from the 1970s onward he led the factory’s pile-fermentation craft to mastery, the “Menghai flavour” ripe-tea lineage (7572 its classic type) becoming the trade’s benchmark. The 8582 and other classics belong to the same era under his hand; the trade honours him as a founding master of wo dui fermentation. In 1999 he founded Haiwan Tea Industry, the “Lao Tong Zhi” brand carrying the Menghai style onward. This cake — wrapper reading “Menghai Remote Forested Mountains Wild Tea” — unites wild-material declaration, master supervision, and an exact date: the most completely documented face in the portrait-tea group. Small worm-holes in the wrapper are the honest diary of natural cellaring, kin to the oil stains of time. Pressed 2005, now twenty-one years old.

Originally cellared in Kunming, relocated in batches to Hong Kong.

• Cake
• Raw
• Weight: unlabeled
• Maker: China Yunnan Anning Haiwan Tea Co.
• Features: “Supervised by Zou Bingliang” + hand signature (out of print) + “Menghai Wild Tea” + green fretwork border
• Condition: worm-holes in wrapper — natural marks of age
• Rarity: Class I (out-of-print signature + portrait tea + wild line)
• Line: portrait tea

Close

CA-013 Zhongcha Banzhang Blue Print

Material Year: Material 2003｜Pressed/Repacked 2024-05-21

The “Banzhang Blue Print” (colloquially “Guimian Lan”) wears a spare, classic face: blue characters arc around the round — “Corporation,” “China Tea,” “Yunnan Provincial Company,” “Zhongcha Brand Round Cake” — around a blue Eight-Zhong mark, with “Ban · Zhang” set in a small blue frame below. The Blue Print takes its name from the blue tea-character, third colour beside the Red and Green prints in the print-grade chromatic line. Lao Banzhang lies deep in Bulang township near the Myanmar border: founded (by record) in 1476, Hani settlers who — the telling goes — received their land from the earlier Blang of Lao Man’e; fog over a hundred days a year, rich soils, intact native vegetation — the physical floor of the “tea king” terroir. Banzhang tea is known for cha-qi: bitterness that resolves quickly, a returning sweetness that surges. The label records material 2003 — the very eve of Banzhang’s rise to fame — repacked May 2024. At twenty-three years the cake runs in the “medicine at ten years” segment. Blue-Print style over Banzhang bloodline: a style-and-mountain dual-line archive piece.

Originally cellared in Kunming, relocated in batches to Hong Kong.

• Cake
• Raw
• 357g±
• Yunnan Fuluxiang Tea Co.
• SC11453010300660
• Features: Blue-Print arced layout + blue Eight-Zhong mark + “Ban · Zhang” blue frame seal
• Condition: wrapper intact
• Rarity: Class I (Banzhang origin + Blue-Print style)

Close

CA-014 Long Xiang Ji Red Print

Material Year: Material: unlabeled (left blank as recorded)｜Pressed 2008-04-20 (red inkjet)｜Cycle-year: Wuzi year, Spring (wrapper)

A face apart. The Shanxi merchants — the great trading houses of the Ming-Qing tea frontier — ran their tea houses on “house-name credit,” and this wrapper speaks that aesthetic: “Long Xiang Ji” in vertical hand, “Red Print” beneath, the cycle-year Wuzi (2008) with a “Spring” seal, “Produced by Jin Long Xiang Ji Tea House,” a woodcut figure at centre, water waves below — the “tea-boat road” motif. The licence pair on the reverse — a local-standard DB/TM101-2003 and an old-format hygiene licence of 2005 — records the very years the licensing system changed over, a documentary specimen of that transition. The “Jin” character points to the Shanxi origin; the “Ji” suffix is the Shanxi house-naming convention. Pressed 2008, now eighteen years old. A cultural-commemorative line in contemporary revival of the Shanxi tea-house style — where the house name itself stood surety for the tea.

Originally cellared in Kunming, relocated in batches to Hong Kong.

• Cake
• Raw
• 357g
• Maker: Menghai Tianming Tea Factory
• Licence: 滇衛食字(2005) No.5300587 (old-format licence as recorded)
• Features: Shanxi-merchant ticket-house layout + figure woodcut + “Long Xiang Ji” + water-wave border
• Condition: wrapper intact (reverse label visible)
• Rarity: Class II (cultural commemorative style)

Close

CA-015 Tong Qing Hao Blue Ticket Nude Cake

Material Year: Material: unlabeled (blank as recorded)｜Pressed: unlabeled

A nude cake — wrapper removed, body bare — travelling with its blue neipiao ticket: a living textbook of the vintage-brand line. The ticket’s twin-lion-and-globe crest and four roundel characters belong to the classic Tong Qing Hao format; the house was founded in 1736 (Yongzheng 13) by Liu Hancheng of Shiping at Yiwu, among the region’s earliest tea houses; the “Dragon-Horse” ticket gave way to the “Twin-Lion” design around 1920 — the crest before you carries that later bloodline. The format follows the Twin-Lion period; the actual production year is left to authentication. A red-paper hand inscription “Yongle Twin-Lion Tong Qing” rides the ticket’s edge beside the printed text — handwritten mark over print, year unstated. Tong Qing Hao is a heavily counterfeited name; the archive principle here is strict: record as found, leave the year blank, conjecture nothing. In the vintage-brand system the neipiao is far more than an instruction sheet — brand narrative and anti-forgery credential at once; with the wrapper gone it is this piece’s sole identity document, the spine of its provenance.

Originally cellared in Kunming, relocated in batches to Hong Kong.

• Nude cake
• Raw
• Weight: unstated (ticket unlabeled)
• Features: blue neipiao ticket (twin-lion-and-globe crest + four roundel characters + vertical text) + red-paper hand inscription “Yongle Twin-Lion Tong Qing”
• Note: vintage deliberately left blank (Tong Qing line is date-sensitive); third-party authentication recommended
• Condition: reverse visible (nude cake + ticket face)
• Rarity: Class I (vintage-brand ticket piece)

Close

CA-016 Macau Hua Lian Fortune-God Banzhang

Material Year: Material 2004 (jia-shen year)｜Pressed/Repacked 2025-09-13 (final digit read at close range; dual reading 13/8 recorded as-is)

The representative of the Hong Kong–Macau diaspora line in this collection. The face is festive and grand: “Macau Hua Lian” with “Selected Premium Banzhang,” the seal-script characters “Fortune” and “God” flanking a Fortune-God woodcut, six columns of blessing verse, three gold coins below, a laser hologram for good measure — the marriage of diaspora festive culture and Pu-erh collecting. The jia-shen year marks 2004. The reverse label records material 2004, 357g, produced by Yunnan Suisheng Tea Co., repacked 2025 (final digit read at close range; both readings recorded as-found), bearing the line “second inspection passed — approved for resale.” Ripe tea ages by its own saying — “three years to settle the fire, ten to mellowness, twenty to transformation” — and at twenty-two years this cake stands at the door of transformation: the golden window of ripe-tea collecting. Banzhang material through ripening craft: mountain origin married to fermentation. In Hong Kong tea houses such a cake is a familiar guest — warm, smooth, at home with dim sum.

Originally cellared in Kunming, relocated in batches to Hong Kong.

• Cake
• Ripe
• 357g
• Producer: Yunnan Suisheng Tea Co.
• SC11453010104808
• Features: Fortune-God woodcut + seal-script “Fortune God” + six-column blessing verses + laser hologram roundel + gold-coin motifs
• Condition: wrapper intact
• Rarity: Class II (diaspora line + Banzhang ripe + cultural print)

Close

CA-017 1996 Tea Research Institute “Yun Tea” Raw Cake

Material Year: Material 1996｜Pressed 2005-04-29

The sole specimen of the research-institute line in this collection. The reverse label opens with the oval “Yun Tea” mark and a quality panel — the tea made from fine sun-dried maocha of Menghai county, “plump strands, mellow taste, distinctive aroma, ever-better with age,” a pollution-free health food “of high collecting value” — issued jointly by the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences’ Tea Research Institute and the Xishuangbanna Pu-erh Tea Research Institute with Menghai Yun Tea Technology Co.: a rare endorsing combination in Pu-erh archives. A red handwritten label in a former collector’s hand records an open-tea tasting: “pressed 1996 by the Tea Research Institute… now showing ginseng-and-medicinal aroma, silky soup, fine returning sweetness — a treasure among aged raw.” Those notes answer the aging canon — “medicine at ten, summit at thirty” — from the taster’s own cup: institute issue, tasting testimony, and aging curve converging on one cake. An English panel (“Yun-tea Serial Pu Erh Tea…”, right-edge cut as found) shows the institute’s bilingual instinct.

Originally cellared in Kunming, relocated in batches to Hong Kong.

• Cake
• Raw
• 357g
• Issued: Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences Tea Research Institute / Xishuangbanna Pu-erh Tea Research Institute
• Produced: Menghai Yun Tea Technology Co.
• Standard DB53/10-2006
• Features: “Yun Tea” oval mark + quality-characteristic panel + English paragraph + red handwritten tasting-note label
• Condition: wrapper intact
• Rarity: Class I (research-institute line + aged material)
• Line: research institute

Close

CA-018 Vietnam-Postmark Cake · Front + Back

Material Year: Material 1990s (faint label)｜Pressed 2024-04-11 (faint)

One cake, photographed front and back, united under a single number. The face carries a round Hanoi postmark dated 10-10-1995 and a Vietnamese “World Cultural Heritage” commemorative stamping of 10/2017 — two moments, thirty years apart, sharing one wrapper. The reverse label, faint from print and handling, is recorded strictly as-found: Yunnan large-leaf sun-dried maocha, 357g, a Menghai township (Manwei village) address, 1990s material, pressed April 2024 — maker name and product name awaiting physical re-read, nothing forced. The postmark’s cause is left open — old-stock wrapper reuse or a marking somewhere along its circulation — recorded with doubt as-found, no conjecture. Three anchor points stand: Manwei village in Menghai town, 1990s material, 2024 pressing — the “aged material, fresh-pressed” pattern, the same structure as CA-003. The Hanoi mark speaks of the border-trade reopening of the early 1990s, when Yunnan tea moved south again through Hekou and Lao Cai — the stamp is not the factory’s, but circulation’s own archive written on the wrapper.

Originally cellared in Kunming, relocated in batches to Hong Kong.

• Cake (wrapped)
• Raw
• 357g (label, legible)
• Maker: “Menghai □ Tea Factory” (final character faint, left blank)
• Licence: middle segment 53282241020 partially legible
• Features: front Hanoi postmark (10-10-1995) + twin-dragon temple seal + Vietnamese World-Heritage mark (10/2017); reverse white label faint throughout
• Note: maker/product name awaiting physical re-read; auction record to follow (piece carries auction record — provenance upgraded to lead piece)
• Condition: both faces visible
• Rarity: Class II (90s material fresh-pressed + diaspora lead + postmark provenance)
• Line: diaspora

Close

CA-020 Zhongcha Yellow Print 2004-7542

Material Year: Material 2004 (reverse label, confirmed)｜Pressed/Repacked 2025-09-13

One cake, two faces: the wrapper in the early China National Native Produce & Animal By-Products (CNATS) style; the reverse label naming “2004-7542 Zang Yin.” The Yellow Print takes its name from the tea character printed in yellow inside the Eight-Zhong ring, a small red “Banzhang” set beneath — a quiet origin note from the years before Banzhang became a market watchword; that contrast between modest mark and today’s fame is itself a twenty-year縮影 miniature of the Pu-erh market. “7542” is the trade’s open code: recipe fixed 1975, fourth recipe, Menghai factory. The famed “88 Qing” — the 7542 of 1988–92, cellared in Hong Kong and risen to legend — is the narrow sense; the broad sense runs to the mid-90s siblings. Market note: 88 Qing has stayed firm, setting the benchmark (as of Sept 2026). The Yellow Print’s blend is regarded in the trade as a forerunner of the 7542 line — this cake, its yellow mark and 7542 naming on one paper, sits squarely on that bloodline. CNATS was the official export channel of the planned-economy decades; “Tea & Livestock” on the label is the era’s own signature. Material 2004: twenty-two years old, in the “medicine at ten” segment. Recipe is flavour’s gene; year is aging’s coordinate.

Originally cellared in Kunming, relocated in batches to Hong Kong.

• Cake
• Raw
• 357g
• Brand/channel: Zhongcha (China National Native Produce & Animal By-Products Imp. & Exp. Corp., Yunnan Tea Branch)
• Producer: Yunnan Suisheng Tea Co.
• SC11453010104888
• Features: yellow Eight-Zhong mark + red chain-ring border + small “Banzhang” mark + “YUNNAN CHI TSE BEENG CHA” arc + bilingual CNATS panel; reverse white label (“Zang Yin” naming + 7542 recipe line)
• Condition: both faces visible, wrapper intact
• Rarity: Class I (Banzhang mark + CNATS style + 7542 recipe + 2004 material)

Close

CA-022 Nanjiao Peacock Cake

Material Year: Material 2004｜Pressed/Repacked 2025-09-13

The peacock is the noble totem of Pu-erh wrapper art. This “Nanjiao Peacock Cake” spreads its display across the centre — first character of the title partly hidden by the motif, recorded as-found — with the printed line “Rich Taste, Sweet Returning Sweetness” in red, archaic arc characters “Peacock Tea Cake” below, and the maker line “China Yunnan Xishuangbanna Menghai Nanjiao Tea Industry” along the base. Nanjiao town, Menghai county: a local mainstay of the Menghai tea zone, its material bloodline close to the Menghai core. The peacock series belongs to the brand-building wave of local factories around the millennium — the display-feather composition giving a 357-gram face something like poster drama, instantly identifiable among its peers. The reverse labels (two identical, recorded as found) note material 2004, 357g, Suisheng repack, second inspection before resale. At twenty-two years the cake runs in the “medicine at ten” segment. Peacock editions vary in feather-count and type-setting — the details collectors use to date and authenticate; this face is complete enough to serve as a working specimen of peacock-chart study.

Originally cellared in Kunming, relocated in batches to Hong Kong.

• Cake
• Raw
• 357g
• Issue: Menghai Nanjiao Tea Factory (base arc)
• Producer: Yunnan Suisheng Tea Co.
• SC11453010104888
• Features: full-display peacock motif + “Rich Taste, Sweet Return” in red + archaic arc characters + bilingual maker line
• Condition: wrapper intact
• Rarity: Class II (Peacock series + 2004 material)

Close

CA-023 Shengshi Che Shun Hao · Spring Tip

Material Year: Material 2003｜Pressed 2024-01-01｜Batch: 20060405 (collection certificate)

A second work of the Che Shun Hao line — same house, different batch. The large brown-gold wrapper reads “Shengshi Che Shun Hao Round Cake · Spring Tip” with a red “Heritage House” seal, “Yiwu Old House,” the heading “From the Tea Horse Road — an Old Pu-erh House,” “old-tree head-spring selected picking,” a collection certificate naming batch 20060405, three craft woodcuts, “Yiwu Zhenshan · Tribute to the Dynasty” across the base, and a black flourish: “Yunnan’s Calling Card.” Yiwu’s tribute history is the ground this cake stands on: entered in the Tribute Register in 1744, the tribute era lasting two centuries, the “Tribute to the Dynasty” plaque its standing proof. “Zhenshan” names the core; “Spring Tip” names the picking — the fine head-spring buds before Qingming, the tribute tradition of “taking the finest” carried into contemporary revival craft. The label records material 2003 pressed January 2024 by Tongqingtang. At twenty-three years, in the “medicine at ten” segment.

Originally cellared in Kunming, relocated in batches to Hong Kong.

• Cake
• Raw
• 357g
• Maker: Menghai County Tongqingtang Tea Co. (“limited company” as printed on label)
• SC1145322232092
• Features: “Shengshi Che Shun Hao Round Cake · Spring Tip” + “Heritage House” red frame seal + “Yiwu Old House” + three craft woodcuts + “Tribute to the Dynasty” + “Yunnan Calling Card”
• Condition: wrapper intact
• Rarity: Class I (Yiwu Zhenshan + vintage-brand line)

Close

CA-024 Blue Print Iron Cake · Taiwan Edition

Material Year: Material 2000｜Pressed 2008-12-25

The archive question here is a single character. The wrapper’s hand sticker reads in the Red-Print manner; the white label names “Blue Print Iron Cake, Taiwan-Market Edition, Pu-erh (Raw).” The two renderings of the same sound — one reading ” roast-to-Taiwan,” one a personal-mark reading — are kept side by side as found; naming follows the object, and no conclusion is drawn before the physical check. What is certain is the format: an iron cake pressed tighter and thinner than a泡餅 loose-press, keeping aroma in and transformation slow — the slow-aging route; under the same material the iron cake clearly trails the loose-press, its peak postponed. The label records material 2000, pressed Christmas Day 2008 by Tongqingtang. At twenty-six years the cake stands deep in the “medicine at ten” segment, its summit further out for the pressing. The Taiwan context: the island’s aged-tea taste — tight cakes built for the long sea crossing and slow, deliberate drinking; the “Taiwan edition” naming records one corner of the millennium export map. Style, naming, and craft meeting at one point: the full interest of iron-cake collecting.

Originally cellared in Kunming, relocated in batches to Hong Kong.

• Iron cake
• Raw
• 357g
• Maker: Menghai County Tongqingtang Tea Co.
• Licence: QS 532814010747 (old-format as recorded)
• Features: Red-Print-style wrapper + “YUNNAN CHITSU PINGCHA” + handwritten sticker + Blue-Print/Taiwan-edition label
• Note: “銷台/銘台” reading kept dual as-found, no conclusion drawn
• Condition: wrapper intact
• Rarity: Class II (iron-cake craft + Blue-Print style)

Close

CA-025 Buddha-Fate Caravan Witness Cakes ×2 + Certificate

Material Year: 2005-05-01 (wrapper inscription; material & press)

A complete cultural-commemorative set: twin cakes and their red collection certificate. The wrapper reads “‘Caravan Tribute Road · Tribute to the Capital’ Witness Cake (Jingye edition)” over the great characters “Fo · Yuan” — Buddha-Fate — and the inscription “Wutai Mountain Yueyan Temple, Abbot Shi Guohe, May the First, Two Thousand Five,” with the lotus-and-hands line drawing at centre. The 2005 “First Caravan Tea Road · Tribute to the Capital” campaign sent mule caravans re-walking the Tea Horse Road into Beijing — the revival movement’s signature event, and this set is its material witness, down to the committee supervision line and the “limited release 6,800 kg” marking. The certificate binds event, issuer, and tea into one provenance chain; a complete pair-plus-certificate is an archiving advantage among commemorative sets. Yongde county belongs to the Lincang zone; the Shuangxiong factory is a local mainstay there. Pressed May 2005 — twenty-one years old. The temple’s blessing, the caravan’s road, and the cake’s own patience: a set that archives the moment Pu-erh culture walked back into national memory.

Originally cellared in Kunming, relocated in batches to Hong Kong.

• Cakes ×2 (set with collection certificate)
• Raw
• Weight: unstated (limited release 6,800 kg stated)
• Issue: Yunnan Yongde Shuangxiong Tea Factory
• Supervised: Pu-erh Tea Culture Beijing Caravan Organizing Committee (as marked)
• Features: “Fo · Yuan” (Buddha-Fate) + Wutai Mountain Yueyan Temple abbot Shi Guohe + lotus-hands motif + Jingye edition + red certificate card
• Condition: wrapper intact (set complete)
• Rarity: Class I (cultural commemorative + limited + complete set)
• Line: cultural commemorative

Close

CA-026 1980s Wild Camphor-Aroma Border-Market Iron Cake

Material Year: Material 1980s｜Pressed 2015-12-16

The collection’s closing piece: a 200-gram iron cake of 1980s material — forty years of material age in ripe tea. The wrapper says it plainly: “Border-Market Tea” in great characters, “Wild Camphor Aroma” beneath, the weight declared — border-market wrappers spoke in essentials, name and weight, against the ornate faces of the collecting line; the small cake format suited daily consumption in the diaspora ports. Camphor aroma belongs to the classic register of deep-aged scent, and the dense press of an iron cake is precisely the long-cycle condition camphor needs — material, format, and aroma verifying one another. The label records ripe material of the 1980s, pressed December 2015 by Yongde County Laoshu Tea Factory (old QS licence as recorded). Forty-year material stands beyond the “transformation threshold” — the top register of the ripe-tea spectrum — with another decade of cellaring since pressing. Yongde’s Dedang town sits in the Lincang tea zone, the same district as the CA-025 Buddha-Fate set. A quiet, honest closing note to the collection: the trade route’s plain face, still breathing camphor.

Originally cellared in Kunming, relocated in batches to Hong Kong.

• Iron cake (small format)
• Ripe
• 200g (non-standard)
• Maker: Yongde County Laoshu (Old-Tree) Tea Factory
• Licence: QS53091401 0015 (old-format as recorded)
• Features: “Border-Market Tea” great characters + “Wild Camphor Aroma” + damaged “First Batch Iron Cake” characters (as found)
• Condition: wrapper intact; face characters partly worn (as found)
• Rarity: Class I (80s aged-material ripe + border-market line + non-standard)
• Line: diaspora

Close