Kunming Tea Factory, Pu'er Tea Factory, and Other State-Owned Factories

Kunming Tea Factory no longer exists, yet it comes up in tea drinkers' conversations all the time: the 7581 ripe brick, the origins of ripe tea processing, and the "1" at the end of recipe codes all trace back to it. This article also introduces Pu'er Tea Factory and several local state-owned factories.

What Kunming Tea Factory Made

Kunming Tea Factory grew out of the Fuxing Tea Factory. Most pu'er books give its founding as 1938, though some sources say 1939. After several shutdowns, relocations, and name changes during and after the war, it was formally named "Yunnan Kunming Tea Factory" in 1960, under the Yunnan branch of the China Tea Company. In its early years it mainly made brick tea for northern Yunnan and Tibetan areas.

Its most important role in pu'er history is as one of the birthplaces of ripe tea processing. In the early 1970s, the Yunnan provincial company organized technicians from the Kunming, Menghai, and Xiaguan factories to study wet-pile fermentation in Guangdong, and after returning to Yunnan, they ran trials separately. One account says Xiaguan Tea Factory first achieved preliminary ripening, after which Kunming Tea Factory completed "damp wet-piling" by adding moisture and heat, and the first mass-produced batch was the "73 thick brick." Menghai Tea Factory's official chronology says the trials succeeded at Menghai in 1973. Zhongcha's company profile also mentions that in 1984 Zhongcha's Kunming Tea Factory organized the drafting of ripe pu'er processing methods and promoted them across the province. Accounts differ on who succeeded first; the fairest view is that several factories each contributed during the same period. The full story is in The Birth of Ripe Tea Processing.

7581 and Other Products

Kunming Tea Factory's most famous product is the 7581 ripe brick: a rectangular ripe brick exported under the Zhongcha brand, mellow with a clear aged aroma, often called the "Kunming brick" by tea drinkers. Later, because the eight-zhong logo was so widely used, Kunming Tea Factory adopted the Jixing and Jinji (Golden Rooster) brands for export, with signature products including Jixing's golden melon tribute tea and Jinji tuocha.

Does Kunming Tea Factory Still Exist?

The old state-owned Kunming Tea Factory has closed. It's generally recorded as stopping production in 1992 due to costs, material allocation, and other factors, and formally closing in 1994 after clearing its inventory. So be extra cautious with any 7581 sold after 1994 that claims to be "made by Kunming Tea Factory": the 7581 code was later used by other producers too, and who actually made a given tea should be judged by the producer listed on the package.

The Last Digit of Recipe Codes: 1, 2, 3, 4

The fourth digit of a recipe code stands for the factory. This numbering system is generally believed to have been set uniformly by the Yunnan Tea Company around 1976:

Sources agree on the first three. "4 for Pu'er Tea Factory" is less clear-cut: today's Yunnan Pu'er Tea (Group) Co., Ltd. states in its company profile that its predecessor, the state-owned Pu'er Tea Factory, had "export recipe codes ending in 4," but some books citing the 1976 meeting list only the Kunming, Menghai, and Xiaguan factories. The tea world generally accepts that 4 belongs to Pu'er Tea Factory, though products ending in 4 are far rarer on the aged tea market than those ending in 1, 2, or 3. For the details of the system, see How Recipe Codes Work and 7542, 8582, 7572: The Stories Behind Pu'er's Classic Recipes.

Pu'er Tea Factory and "Simao Tea Factory"

Pu'er Tea Factory was a state-owned factory founded in 1975 in what was then Pu'er County (today's Ning'er Hani and Yi Autonomous County). Its company profile notes that the factory stood near the site of the official tribute tea factory established in the seventh year of the Yongzheng reign (1729). Pu'er Tea Factory registered the "Puxiu" trademark in 1994 and was restructured as Yunnan Pu'er Tea (Group) Co., Ltd. in 2004.

People often ask what the last digit of "Simao Tea Factory" codes is. Pu'er County was then part of Simao Prefecture (Simao City was renamed Pu'er City in 2007), so some articles list Pu'er Tea Factory among "the old tea factories of Simao." They're mostly talking about the same factory, and its last digit is likewise 4. Simao Prefecture also had county-run tea factories in Jinggu, Lancang, Mojiang, and elsewhere, which were not among the factory codes in the four-digit system.

Local State-Owned Factories in Lincang, Jinggu, and Elsewhere

Besides the few large factories directly under the provincial company, most tea-producing counties also had county-run state-owned factories during the planned-economy period, handling purchasing, primary processing, and some refining:

• Fengqing Tea Factory: grew out of the Shunning Experimental Tea Factory set up in 1938–1939. Known for Dianhong black tea, it also made pu'er. See Fengqing: The Jinxiu Tea Ancestor and Xiangzhuqing.
• Lincang Tea Factory and Shuangjiang Mengku Tea Factory: purchased and processed tea in the Lincang region; large-leaf material from around Mengku is still an important source for blends today. See The Lincang Tea Region at a Glance.
• Jinggu Tea Factory: the local Yangta Dabai tea is quite distinctive. See Jinggu: Yangta Dabai and Kuzhushan.
• Lancang Tea Factory: located in Lancang County, home of Jingmai Mountain, later restructured into today's Lancang Ancient Tea.
• Nanjian Tea Factory: in Nanjian County, Dali Prefecture, in western Yunnan like Xiaguan.

Most of these local factories were restructured or changed hands in the 1990s and 2000s, and some became the forerunners of well-known brands today. For the rise and fall of state-owned tea factories as a whole, see State-Owned Tea Factories in the Planned Economy and Factory Privatization and the Brand Era.

FAQ

What is Kunming Tea Factory's most famous tea? The 7581 ripe brick, often called the Kunming brick.

How is Kunming Tea Factory connected to ripe tea? It was one of the factories that trialed wet-pile processing for ripe tea in the 1970s, and it mass-produced early ripe bricks.

Does Kunming Tea Factory still exist? It's generally recorded as stopping production in 1992 and closing in 1994.

What's the last digit of Kunming Tea Factory's recipe codes? It's 1, as in 7581.

Where is Pu'er Tea Factory, and what's its last digit? In today's Ning'er County, Pu'er City. It was founded in 1975, and its last digit is 4.