The judgment of the authenticity of Pu'er tea has always been an important topic that plagues Pu'er tea hobbies. High-grade Pu'er tea, especially old tea and famous mountain famous ancient tree tea, due to the scarcity of quantity, in recent years the price has been higher and higher, so counterfeiters flock to seek huge profits with fake and real. Lao Yang played tea for thirteen years and found that the tea friends around him were even senior tea friends and tea merchants, and many people were deeply affected by it. There is also controversy over the tea products that some tea merchants who claim to collect raw materials every year and veteran tea players who take out to taste.
The judgment of the authenticity of Pu'er tea is only for two aspects, one is the judgment of brand tea, especially old tea, and the other is the judgment of ancient tree pure material tea. At present, there is no authoritative and recognized judgment method for judging the authenticity of Pu'er tea, nor are there relevant national, local and industry standards. Lao Yang played tea for 13 years, began to contact Pu'er tea in 2007, began to contact Pu'er old tea in 2009, tasted all kinds of Pu'er tea three or four thousand models, accumulated some experience in Pu'er tea identification, and gradually explored some practical tips for identifying the authenticity of Pu'er tea, which was simply summarized as "three looks, one smell, one product, one weighing".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" >, look at the packaging</h1>
The way to carefully identify tea packaging is the most practical, effective and most commonly used method to judge the authenticity of Pu'er tea. The inner and outer packaging of Pu'er tea contains a lot of historical information, which is in a sense the identity card of Pu'er tea.
There are two main types of finished pu'er tea, such as tight-pressed tea and loose tea, of which tight-pressed tea mainly has several shapes such as brick type, cake shape, tuo shape, and group shape. The traditional packaging of Pu'er tea tight pressure tea from the inside out generally has internal fly, internal ticket, outsourcing paper, tube ticket, bamboo shoot shell outsourcing, large ticket and so on. The outer packaging of loose tea is mainly used alone or compositely in paper bags, cartons, cartons, wooden boxes, plastic bags, plastic films, etc.
In different historical periods, the packaging, printing and material of Pu'er tea have more distinct historical characteristics. In the late Qing Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty, the folk of Pu'er tea production areas in Yunnan were private tea-making businesses, and most of the packaging materials such as inner fly and wrapping paper for printing tea were engraved and printed (wood board printing). Engraving printing needs to be engraved first, and the engraving is generally made of jujube wood and pear wood. When printing, the engraved engraving plate is coated with water-based ink, the paper is covered on the plate, and the brush is gently and evenly tested, and the text and pattern are transferred to the paper. Most of the tea packaging printed during the Republic of China used "vegetable oil-based ink", "water-soluble ink" and folk self-made ink.
After the founding of New China, China Tea Company began to produce "Indian grade tea", Pu'er tea packaging gradually added some small amounts of artistic color, printing technology has begun to use small-scale flat press, the implementation of monochrome machine printing. The outer packaging paper of Pu'er tea, in addition to the traditional handmade soil cotton paper, began to gradually adopt mechanical paper. The packaging design of "Print Grade Tea" is simple, the center of the outer cotton paper has a 30 fine art body "tea" word, and the "tea" word is surrounded by eight flat body "Zhong" characters, and the design creativity is commonly known as "Eight Zhongcha", which is the trademark pattern of China Tea Company. The outer part of the trademark of the outsourced cotton paper "Eight Chinese Tea" is composed of a large circle, the upper part is composed of traditional Song characters written from right to left "China Tea Industry Company Yunnan Province Company", and the lower part is written from right to left "Chinese Tea Brand Round Tea" traditional art characters, and the design is divided into traditional chinese version and simplified character version. The outer packaging of Printed Grade Tea is commonly printed with several printing colors such as red and blue, of which red is called "red seal" and blue is called "blue seal".
It is marked by the establishment of the Yunnan Tea Branch of the China Land and Livestock Import and Export Company in 1972. After 1972, the Pu'er tea cake produced by the state-owned tea factory was printed with "Yunnan Qizi Cake Tea" and printed with pinyin letters, and the middle "tea" character was mainly green, and the red and yellow "tea" were printed individually. At this time, the packaging of Pu'er tea cake is no longer printed with the name of "China Tea Company", but is produced by each tea factory itself, collectively known as "Yunnan Seven Zi Cake", such as Snow Seal Green Cake, 73 Green Cake, Large Mouth, Small Yellow Seal, 88 Green Cake and so on. This period is also known as the "Seven Sons Cake" period, and classic marks such as 7542, 7581, 7572, 7562, and 8582 are from this period.
During the "reform and opening up" period, the design, printing and packaging of Pu'er tea added some visual art elements, and the printing technology adopted embossed printing and relief printing to create a representative tea with embossed gilding overprint, and there were "Pu'er Square Tea" produced by the Yunnan Tea Branch of China Native Livestock Import and Export Company. During the "reform and opening up" period, the outsourcing paper of Pu'er tea, in addition to following the traditional handmade soil cotton paper, is generally based on the requirements of tea foreign trade exports, and some export teas are also packed in cardboard boxes in addition to the wrapping paper.
It is precisely because the outer packaging of the finished Pu'er tea has certain regularity, standardization and characteristics of the times, for example, 88 green cake is 7542 Pu'er tea produced by Menghai Tea Factory around 1988 to 1990, so the large ticket, inner fly and outer packaging of the genuine 88 green cake must meet the characteristics of the product packaging of Menghai Tea Factory that year. Therefore, we can identify the authenticity of Pu'er tea by checking the outer packaging of the tea leaves. In the vast majority of cases, tea leaves with untrue outer packaging can be interpreted as fake tea. Tea merchants and tea people in Taiwan and Hong Kong take photos of the packaging of Pu'er tea they found and summarized and edit into albums for tea friends. This kind of tea book is regarded as a guideline by some old tea lovers, as a tool book to identify the authenticity of old tea, and when identifying old tea, it is judged whether it is true or false against the album, and it is also honored to call this kind of old tea album "sword spectrum".
Lao Yang once spent a lot of money to collect more than a dozen "sword recipes" and compared them with historical data one by one, and found that the editing and collation of these Pu'er tea "sword recipes" was not comprehensive, and there were some verification errors. It can be used as an important reference book for the identification of old tea, but it cannot be superstitious as an identification secret, completely according to Tu Suoji.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="12" ></h1>
Pu'er tea needs to be marked on the outer packaging of the tea grade, the classic mark tea Pu'er tea materials also have the formula of the grade specification, so in the industry the characteristics of old tea dry tea can help judge the authenticity of tea. For tea produced by large factories, the grade of raw materials marked on the outer packaging must be consistent with the grade of dry tea, and if the grade is inconsistent, it can be suspected whether the product is a fake. The classic mark tea cake of the state-run tea factory period must be a noodle blended tea that meets the requirements of the recipe, which can help us judge the authenticity of old tea from one aspect.
Pure material mountain head ancient tree raw tea, each mountain head tea in the tea plant varieties, climate and soil have different, so the appearance of dry tea will also be different. For example, Yibang Ancient Tree Tea is a small and medium-leaf species, which is reflected in the dry tea is relatively small in appearance. The shape of dried tea can also be used as a factor in judging the authenticity of Shantou tea.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="15" > three, smell the tea</h1>
Tea lovers who love tea know that tea aroma is one of the important criteria for judging the quality of tea. Good tea must have a good tea aroma, by smelling the aroma of tea, we can help us judge the quality of new tea. In addition, the pure material shantou tea of Yunnan Pu'er tea has more obvious mountain characteristics due to different factors such as origin and tree species. For example: Jingmaishan ancient tree tea has an elegant orchid fragrance, LaoBanzhang ancient tree tea has a unique nectar fragrance and so on. For old tea, we cannot simply judge the authenticity by tea aroma, but for new tea with pure materials in the mountains, we can judge whether the origin is authentic through the characteristics of tea aroma.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="17" >4</h1>
In the previous article, I have introduced: the taste factor is the most important criterion for us to judge the quality and authenticity of tea. This standard also applies to the identification of the authenticity of Pu'er tea, especially for the authenticity of pure raw tea in Shantou. Yunnan Pu'er tea pure material Shantou ancient tree tea has distinct characteristics of the production area, for example: Jingmai Mountain ancient tree tea is characterized by astringent bottom orchid fragrance, astringency is heavier than bitterness; Xigui ancient tree tea has the characteristics of bitter bottom orchid fragrance, bitterness is heavier than astringency, and also has a unique "fungal aroma"; Yiwu ancient tree tea has the characteristics of soup perfume, bitter balance, high nectar aroma, sweet, soft soup; Iceland Laozhai ancient tree tea has the characteristics of "ice orange sweet rhyme" or "ice sugar rhyme", bitter balance, bitterness is not yang, tea soup sweet; Laobanzhang ancient tree tea has a unique nectar fragrance, The taste is mellow and full, the bitterness is obvious and balanced, the tea feels domineering, the return is sweet, the charm is long, and so on. We have mastered the mountain characteristics of Pu'er tea in Yunnan Mingshan Village, and then we can accurately judge whether the tea production area is authentic through tasting and corresponding.
In addition, the ancient tree tea tree is long in age, large in shape, deep in roots, more abundant in bud and leaf nutrients, and has the characteristics of bitterness balance and coordination, bitterness and easy chemicalization, rich taste level, full taste, fresh and sweet, long charm, and relatively good physical and mental feelings in the taste of finished tea. After tasting many times, you can clearly feel the difference between ancient tree tea and Terrace tea. Therefore, tasting the taste of tea is also the most important means and method to judge whether tea is ancient tree tea.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="20" >5, look at the leaf bottom </h1>
Looking at the bottom of the leaf is a more practical way to judge the authenticity of Pu'er tea old tea. The naturally aged old tea base should be uniform in color, degree of transformation and degree of fermentation; the old tea bottom of the tea leaf that is forged by the blending method is mixed, the color is uneven, the degree of fermentation is different, and most of the old raw tea with miscellaneous flowers at the bottom of the leaves is doubtful.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="22" >6</h1>
The weight of pu'er tea old tea is reduced in an appropriate amount with the sublimation of the years, and the pu'er tea products of regular tea factories also have stricter specifications in weight. Therefore, the weighing of old tea in Pu'er tea can also become an auxiliary means to judge the authenticity of old tea. In general, the weight of old tea should be slightly less than the standard weight of the product. At the same time, whether it is new tea or old tea, if the weight of tea leaves and the nominal weight of packaging have a large difference, it is necessary to pay more attention to the identification and combine other factors to judge the authenticity.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="24" > seven, old tea must be "inherited in an orderly manner"</h1>
Pu'er tea old tea is enshrined as an "antique that can be drunk". Therefore, the authenticity identification of pu'er tea old tea can be carried out by the method of antique identification. The identification of heirloom antiques attaches great importance to the orderly inheritance. The identification of old Pu'er tea also needs to explore the history of the inheritance and circulation of old tea, and make the origin as clear and orderly as possible. For old tea that is not clear about the origin or old tea that cannot correspond to historical data, it must be screened more, and it is not easy to draw conclusions, and it is necessary to seek verification in many ways without leaving a trace of doubt. Without leaving a trace of doubt, we can reduce the probability of Pu'er old tea identification "hitting the eye" and avoid unnecessary losses in the collection.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="26" >8, comprehensive judgment, no superstitious authority, no doubt</h1>
It is difficult to judge the authenticity of Pu'er tea, and it is necessary to combine various factors to judge in order to accurately judge the authenticity of Pu'er tea. For ordinary tea friends, the identification of various types of tea is best to adhere to the method of "three looks, one smell, one product, and one weighing" to make a comprehensive judgment. The identification of Pu'er tea must be "hands-on", face the physical identification, and pass the tasting identification. In the old tea circle of Pu'er tea, the so-called "experts" are mostly tea merchants, and tea merchants cannot get rid of the relationship of interests, and their introduction and identification of tea products are difficult to guarantee a complete objective public. When we identify old tea, we need to learn to eliminate external interference, carefully study every detail and question of the product, figure out every problem, and leave no doubts.
Although pu'er tea identification is difficult and requires certain accumulation of experience, if tea friends can adhere to "three looks, one smell, one product, one weighing", comprehensively determine the authenticity of tea, and communicate more, I believe that everyone will soon be able to grasp the correct method of Pu'er tea identification, so as to drink Pu'er tea clearly.
Author: Yang Shengkun
Editor: Ah Jun