Hao-Grade, Yin-Grade, and Qizi Bing: The Three Eras of Aged Pu'er
Step into the world of pu'er collecting and you will hear a string of names that sound like code words: "Songpin," "Red Mark," "8582." Behind them is a system that divides pu'er into three periods by era: Hao-grade tea, Yin-grade tea, and qizi bing ("seven-sons cake") tea. This system was put together by tea people in Taiwan and Hong Kong in the 1990s, and it is still the most common shared language among collectors today.
Hao-Grade Tea: The Era of Private Tea Houses
Era: Late Qing dynasty through the Republic of China period, roughly before 1950.
From the late Qing through the Republican era, the Yiwu, Yibang, and Menghai areas had many private tea houses. They traded under the name hao (a house name), buying, processing, pressing, and selling their own tea. Tea surviving from this period is called "Hao-grade tea." Frequently mentioned names include:
- Tongqing, Songpin, and Fuyuanchang: often named together as the representative tea houses of Yiwu. Fuyuanchang closed for a time in the late Qing, reopened in the early Republican years, and was still producing on a considerable scale in the 1920s.
- Cheshun, Tongxing, Chenyun, and others.
Hao-grade teas mostly used raw material from around Yiwu, pressed into round cakes and wrapped into stacks with bamboo husk. Each cake often contained a neifei (embedded ticket) bearing the tea house's name. After nearly a century of aging, very few Hao-grade teas survive, and they are treasures at auction.
Yin-Grade Tea: The Era of Zhongcha Brand Round Tea
Era: The 1950s through the late 1960s.
From the 1950s on, pu'er was produced by state-run tea factories and packaged uniformly as "Zhongcha brand round tea." The center of the cotton-paper wrapper carried a design of eight "中" (zhong) characters surrounding one "茶" (cha, tea) character. The ink color of that "茶" became the tea's name:
- Red Mark: the earliest batch among Yin-grade teas, regarded as the representative Yin-grade tea.
- Green Mark (also called Blue Mark): produced later, and further divided into "Grade A" and "Grade B."
- Yellow Mark: a later batch among Yin-grade teas.
Different sources date the Yin-grade periods slightly differently, but the overall picture is consistent: Red Mark came first, Yellow Mark last.
Qizi Bing Tea: The Era of Exports and Recipe Numbers
Era: The 1970s onward.
In the early 1970s, Yunnan's tea import-export company renamed "round tea" (yuan cha) as "cake tea" (bing cha) and exported it under the name "qizi bing" (seven-sons cake): 7 cakes to a stack, each about 357 g. This period also introduced four-digit recipe numbers (maihao) to identify blends, such as 7542, 7572, and 8582, so buyers could specify exactly what they wanted. Around 1973 the wet piling (wodui) process for ripe tea matured, and ripe tea also began appearing in the qizi bing era.
For how to read recipe numbers and the classic recipes, see 7542, 8582, 7572: The Stories Behind Classic Pu'er Recipe Numbers.
Why 357 Grams
The most common explanation for the 357 g cake has to do with export packaging. After 1959, China switched to the market system of "1 jin = 500 g," and export tea was packed in cases of about 30 kg: 12 stacks per case, 7 cakes per stack. Divide 30 kg by 84 cakes and you get about 357 g per cake. As for the Qing dynasty, the Collected Statutes and Precedents of the Great Qing records Yunnan tea as "seven rounds to a stack, weighing forty-nine taels," which works out to a per-cake weight different from today's 357 g. So the "seven sons" tradition goes back to the Qing, while "357 g" is a figure set by modern export specifications.
The Three Eras at a Glance
| Period | Approximate era | Producer | Representative teas |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hao-grade tea | Late Qing to before 1950 | Private tea houses | Tongqing, Songpin, Fuyuanchang, Cheshun |
| Yin-grade tea | 1950s–1960s | State tea factories, Zhongcha brand round tea | Red Mark, Green Mark, Yellow Mark |
| Qizi bing tea | 1970s onward | Tea factories and import-export companies | 7542, 7572, 8582 |
How to Appreciate Aged Tea
For most people, Hao-grade and Yin-grade teas are museum pieces that they will rarely get a chance to taste. Getting to know them is more like reading a chapter of pu'er history: the handmade era of private tea houses, the unified era of state tea factories, the era of exports and recipes, and on to today's single-mountain teas and small packages.
The most practical way to experience what "time" does to pu'er yourself is to buy a new raw tea you like, brew it at the same time each year, and keep notes. That becomes your very own "vintage tea." For how to do it, read Pu'er Aging and Vintages.
Characteristics of Hao-Grade Tea
Hao-grade teas mostly came from around Yiwu. After nearly a century of aging, the liquor is deep red and clear, the aroma steady and settled, often described as carrying deep notes of camphor, wood, and an herbal, medicinal-like scent, with a silky mouthfeel. They were usually wrapped in bamboo-husk stacks, with each cake carrying the tea house's neifei (embedded ticket) or neipiao (inner ticket). Because so few survive, most tea lovers will only ever see them in books or auction catalogs.
Characteristics of Yin-Grade Tea
Yin-grade teas were produced uniformly by state tea factories, mostly blending raw material from different tea regions, with a full, balanced flavor. Red Mark is often described as having a thick liquor and a deep, steady aged aroma; Green Mark and Yellow Mark each have their own fans. Yin-grade tea is a bridge generation: it carried on the round-cake form of Hao-grade tea while opening the era of standardized production by state factories.
The Language of Collectors
Tea people in Taiwan and Hong Kong organized this system of periods in the 1990s and wrote it into books, giving pu'er collecting and trading a common language. Today, even someone who has just started drinking pu'er has a rough idea which era is meant on hearing "Red Mark" or "Hao-grade." That story is told in Pu'er and Taiwan.
A Word for Beginners
You don't need to chase aged tea to enjoy what time does. Buy a new raw tea you like today, store it well, and open it ten years from now. It will be your "aged tea."
FAQ
What year is Red Mark from? Red Mark is the earliest batch of 1950s Zhongcha brand round tea and is regarded as the representative Yin-grade tea; sources differ slightly on the exact year.
Is qizi bing always aged tea? No. Qizi bing is a format and a name used from the 1970s to today. Newly made 357 g round cakes are often called qizi bing too.
Can you still buy Hao-grade tea? Very few survive, and most change hands at auction or among collectors. Be especially cautious with anything on the market claiming to be Hao-grade tea.