The raw materials used in the standard raw tea produced by Menghai Tea Factory mainly come from Menghai County, Banna Prefecture. In the Bada, Brown, Nannuo, Banzhang and other tea mountains under the jurisdiction of this area, there are still a large number of rough-cultivated wild teas from the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. Most of the early Menghai factory green cakes used this tea cyanine as the raw material for making tea. After the mid-1980s, these old tea gardens were quickly replaced by tea gardens with improved shrubs and new trees, and three base tea gardens were built in Bada, Brown, and Nannuoshan.
In order to ensure the relative stability of bulk product production, the raw tea products of Menghai Tea Factory are all blended. In addition to using tea green raw materials from different production areas and different grades for blending, an important link that is not easy for outsiders to know is that each tea product uses 3-5 years old raw materials for blending, that is, the tea in Yibing Tea , there are even earlier raw materials. The raw tea of ??Menghai Tea Factory includes large and small brick tea, Tuo tea and cake tea. Among them, the main types of cakes and teas are as follows: Qizi cake with mark number 7542 is the largest product among the green cakes of Menghai Tea Factory. The blending method is: the noodle tea uses grade 3 and 4 young buds and leaves, and the inside tea uses grade 5 and 6 leaves (in the later period, grade 7 and 8 old leaves also appeared).
This tea product should have been produced since the early 1980s. According to the documentation of the import and export company, the Menghai Tea Factory did not have products with the mark number 7542 during the Cultural Revolution. There has been a rumor circulating in the market for a long time that tea products with the mark number 75X2 were produced starting in 1975, but this is not actually the case. Of the tea products produced by the Menghai Tea Factory in the 1970s, only two types of cooked tea, 7572 and 7452, are known. It is still unclear whether raw cakes were produced during the Cultural Revolution. However, the 7532, 7542, 7582 and other raw cakes circulating on the market are all products produced after the 1980s.
The number of Qizi Laoqing cakes circulating in the market is 7542. This tea has a long production life, and the quality varies greatly between batches. Therefore, it takes considerable experience to identify the quality and age of a certain piece of tea. People usually judge the year by the printing on the outer wrapping paper. However, the outer paper can only be used as a reference, because there are tea products on the market that have replaced the outer paper, and there are also later products that imitate early printing. In the dating of tea products, the inner flying of tea cakes has comparative value as a reference; ink, paper, cake molds, tea material blending techniques, etc. are also important basis for identification.
7542, commonly known as "73 Green Cake", was named by Mr. Huang from Yuhuxuan in Taipei in December 1998. The outer paper of this batch of tea is Dakouzhong. The tea characters are stamped by hand. The inner fly has two types of fine characters and artistic fonts. The brush mark is 7542-503 or -506. Earlier, people thought that "73 Green Cake" was produced in 1973. It can be said with certainty: the 50X number on the horizontal ticket of "73 Green Cake" indicates that it was still in production in 1985. The Qizi Cake with the mark number 7532 is the most delicate tea product among the green cakes from the Menghai Tea Factory, and the output is not very large. This tea blending method is a blend of 3-6 grade tea green raw materials, with the same surface and inner tea.
7532, commonly known as "Snow Print Green Cake", was named by Mr. Yu Huxuan Huang in November 1999. It refers to a batch of 7532 green cakes made in the early 1980s. The appearance of this batch of 7532 is: packed in a paper tube, wrapped with a small mouth of medium oil-faced thick paper, the tea characters are hand-stamped in pink and green, the cinnabar red fine characters are flat and flying inside, a small inner ticket, and a small cake mold.
Real "snow marks" are rarely seen on the market. However, because the name "Snow Seal" was so famous in the tea industry, many 7532s were later named "Snow Seal" to increase their value. Please pay attention to distinguish the age when purchasing. The Menghai Tea Factory began producing 7582 green cakes after 1980. After 1985, Hong Kong Nantian Trading Company began to customize Qizi Cake Tea from Menghai Tea Factory. From then on, the brand name of this tea was also changed to 8582. The brand number of 8582 was used from 1985 to the early 1990s, and then Some products have resumed using the name 7582.
The blending method of 8582 is: use grade 3 and 4 young buds and leaves for noodle tea, and use grade 7 and 8 leaves for inner tea (in the later stage, green and strong leaves of grade 5 and 6 may also be mixed). The early 8582 cake mold was larger, about 21cm in diameter.
Most of the 8582 green cakes are packaged in thin paper. In the early days, there were three batches of 8582 packaged in thick tissue paper. It is known that their dates range from 1987 to 1992. There is a big difference in the cake molds between these three batches. 7572, has long been used as the label for cooked tea from Menghai Tea Factory. However, due to special reasons, a batch of 7572 raw tea also appeared in history.
This batch of 7572 raw tea was produced in 1981. The Yunnan Tea Company accepted an order from the Hong Kong Li On Tea Company and was handed over to the Hong Kong businessman by Li Yisheng, the former deputy director of the Menghai Factory. This batch of tea has a large mouth on the middle and outer wrapping paper, with fine characters on the tip protruding from the inside. The tea cyanine raw materials used are fatter than the 7542 of the same period, and the tea content is very similar. When purchasing 7572 green cakes, you must pay attention to the storage quality. Most of the ones you see on the market have poor appearance and taste due to being stored in warehouses. The early products of the Menghai Tea Factory include the "Seven Sons Yellow Seal" series, "Big Blue Seal", "Red Belt" and other tea products. These teas are very rare, and most of them have been collected by collectors and withdrawn from the market.
The tea products of the "Huangyin" system are very complex. According to the difference in appearance, tea people divide them into "Big Yellow Seal", "Little Yellow Seal" and "Serious Formula". The name "Huangyin" comes from the fact that the word "tea" in the Bazhong Tea logo on the outer packaging paper is mostly yellow, which is caused by the fading of the original green pigment. Therefore, it is not surprising that tea products with the green word "tea" are also called "yellow seal". Since many of the products of the "Yellow Seal" system do not have labels, combined with the degree of transformation of tea products, it is speculated that they are older than products with labels. The outer packaging is printed with a large mouth, and the inside is printed with fine characters.
"Big Blue Seal" is also the green cake of the early Menghai Tea Factory, and its age is close to the Yellow Seal system. The large mouth is printed, and the tip of the fine characters flies out and inward.
Among the early green cakes from the Menghai Tea Factory, there was a batch of tea named "Red Ribbon Green Cake" because there was a red ribbon buried in the front of the tea cake. The blending method is similar to the early 7532, and the wrapping paper is large and medium-thin paper. Regarding the year of the "Red Belt", it is usually considered to be the same period as the 73 Green Cake, but some people believe that it is earlier.