Named Teas in Collecting Circles: 88 Qing, Snow Mark, Big Cabbage, Water Blue Mark

Spend time in aged tea circles and you'll hear names that don't sound like tea names: 88 Qing, Snow Mark, Big Cabbage, Water Blue Mark. They aren't on the packaging or in any factory catalog; they're "nicknames" passed along by collectors. Behind each one is a story with many versions.

Are These Official Names?

No. They're all nicknames given by tea merchants, collectors, or the auction world to distinguish teas of a certain era, packaging, or storage history within the same recipe. Because they're informal, the same name often has different definitions, and the range of years shifts depending on whom you ask.

One view is more direct: names like Snow Mark and Water Blue Mark actually come from differences in the printing of wrappers at the time. In the 1980s and 1990s, Yunnan's printing plants mixed colors and made plates by hand, so each batch came out with slightly different colors and lettering. Collectors later used these as markers of era and gave each its own name.

For reading the printing on wrappers and the neifei, see How to Read a Pu'er Wrapper and Neifei; for the eras of aged tea, see Haoji, Yinji, and Qizi Bing.

88 Qing

What it refers to: The common definition is 7542 raw cakes made by Menghai Tea Factory around 1989–1992 and aged naturally in dry storage. It's a series, not a single batch.

Where the name comes from: Accounts differ.

• One says "88" refers to 1988: Hong Kong tea figure Chan Kwok-yee's early account was that he named the tea after 1988, the year he opened his business.
• Another comes from Chan's later account: the tea was bought from 1992 on, and "8" was chosen because it sounds like "prosper" in Cantonese, with no connection to 1988. Some reports also say he bought 350 jian (84 cakes each) in four lots in 1993.
• Around 2013, he publicly defined the range as 7542 made by Menghai Tea Factory from 1988 to 1992 that meets dry-storage conditions.

Storage: 88 Qing's fame is inseparable from "dry storage." It's often linked to the story of Hong Kong tea people promoting dry storage, which stood out in a Hong Kong where wet storage was the norm. Many 88 Qing cakes later made their way to Taiwan and Southeast Asia, each with its own storage history. 7542 itself is covered in 7542: The Benchmark Raw Tea Recipe, reading recipe codes in 7542, 8582, 7572: The Stories Behind Pu'er's Classic Recipes, and Hong Kong's storage culture in Hong Kong Storage.

Snow Mark

What it refers to: One account says it means Menghai Tea Factory's early 7532 raw cakes. 7532 is a recipe with more tender material than 7542, and the cake surface is sprinkled with many downy white buds that look like a layer of snow, so collectors named it "Snow Mark" (Xueyin).

Era: Auction catalogs mostly date it to around the early 1980s, though some tea drinkers believe it may go back to the late 1970s; different accounts don't fully agree on the range of years.

Another account: The name comes from differences in the color of the printing on the wrapper, a marker left by a printing batch.

Big Cabbage

What it refers to: A series of raw cakes made by Menghai Tea Factory in the early 2000s (generally said to be around 2001–2004), including teas labeled with regions such as Yiwu and Banzhang.

Where the name comes from: The packaging of these teas bore the green logo of China's organic food certification (OFDC), shaped like a head of napa cabbage, and the name caught on among tea drinkers. Overseas merchants also explain that the OFDC logo is nicknamed "the cabbage" in pu'er circles.

Historical context: Big Cabbage appeared around the time Menghai Tea Factory completed its restructuring in 2004; by then, the factory's "Dayi" trademark had been registered for many years (since 1989). Tea drinkers also often divide Big Cabbage into several "generations" by year and packaging details, though the divisions vary from person to person. For the restructuring background, see Factory Privatization and the Brand Era.

Water Blue Mark

What it refers to: Generally, batches where the "cha" (tea) character in the center of the wrapper is printed in a pale water blue, different from the usual green or darker colors.

Era: Accounts differ. One merchant lists a 2001 Zhongcha-brand 7542 Water Blue Mark raw cake; others call a batch of 7572 ripe cakes from around 1997 Water Blue Mark.

Another account: As with Snow Mark, some believe Water Blue Mark is just a difference in printing color, and the same name may cover teas of different years and recipes.

92 Square Brick

What it refers to: A 100-gram raw tea square brick produced by the Menghai Tea Factory in the early 1990s, which collectors habitually call "92."

Features: The material is on the fine, tender side, with plenty of buds on the brick surface. Instead of being wrapped in bamboo husk in tongs of seven, each brick comes in its own paper box, printed with Zhongcha's "Eight Zhong" mark or a peacock design, with wording below identifying it as a Menghai Tea Factory product.

How it got its name: One account says production spanned roughly 1991–1993 and the name comes from the 1992 batches, the most representative; another says it was first made to order for an export customer. Menghai square bricks from 1992 have appeared in dedicated pu'er sales at international auctions, which shows how much weight it carries among collectors.

Guangyun Gong

What it refers to: Pu'er cakes, and also loose tea, from the Guangdong Tea Import & Export Company. The name takes "Guang" from Guangdong, where it was exported, and "Yun" from the Yunnan raw material, while "Gong" (tribute) is a complimentary term for the product.

Era: Accounts differ. One says batch production began in 1958; another says it was produced mainly in the 1960s–1970s. The market commonly divides it into "'60s Guangyun Gong" and "'70s Guangyun Gong."

Material and craftsmanship: Early batches used mainly Yunnan fresh leaf; one account says Guangdong and Guangxi leaf was gradually blended in after the 1970s, which is why the '60s batches are often described as mellower and fuller and the '70s ones as lighter. Before Yunnan, Guangdong had developed a method of sprinkling piled tea with water to speed up its transformation, and Guangyun Gong is usually placed among these accelerated-fermentation teas. In the 1970s, Yunnan tea factories sent people to Guangdong to study the related techniques, and on their return they developed wet-piled ripe tea; that story is in The Birth of Ripe Pu'er Processing.

Why it's famous: It was one of the representative teas exported to Hong Kong, Macau, and Southeast Asia before Yunnan's ripe tea processing matured, and it's a piece of the puzzle in understanding where ripe tea came from.

Why These Teas Are So Prized

These teas command high prices on the collectors' market, for roughly these reasons:

1. Limited quantity: they're all batches from a particular era. Every cake drunk is one fewer, and they can't be remade.
2. Age and storage: they've been stored for 20–40 years with clear dry-storage stories, and their aging has a good reputation.
3. The recipe's fame: most are classic recipes like 7542 and 7532, which have reference value in their own right.
4. Stories and word of mouth: memorable names and interesting stories spread among tea drinkers, and the fame snowballs.
5. The collecting boom from the 1990s on: collectors in Hong Kong and Taiwan gathered large amounts of mid-aged tea, driving attention. For the background, see Taiwan's Pu'er Collecting Boom in the 1990s.

Their fame also makes it hard to tell genuine teas from fakes bearing the same names. When you come across one, look carefully at the packaging details, the spent leaf, and the storage condition, and have someone you trust help assess it. For what drives prices, read What Drives the Price of Pu'er; for the collecting mindset, see Collecting Basics; for identifying vintage, see How to Judge Vintage.

FAQ

Is 88 Qing tea from 1988? Not necessarily. The common definition is Menghai 7542 from around 1989–1992 kept in dry storage, and there are several accounts of where "88" comes from.

What is Big Cabbage? A series of raw cakes made by Menghai Tea Factory in the early 2000s, named for the organic certification logo on the packaging, which looks like a napa cabbage.

Are Snow Mark and Water Blue Mark official product names? No, they're nicknames given by collectors; some believe they're just differences in wrapper printing color.

Did the factories come up with these names? No, they're names passed around by tea merchants, collectors, and the auction world.