Imported pu'er must go through import inspection with the Taiwan FDA, which, based on risk, applies batch-by-batch inspection, enhanced sampling at 20%–50%, or general sampling at 2%–10%. Pesticide residues are judged against maximum residue limits, failed tea is returned or destroyed, and the results are made public.
Packaged pu'er sold in Taiwan must, under the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation, carry Chinese-language labeling of the product name, contents, net weight, company, place of origin, and expiration date. Characters must be at least 2 mm, dates must give year, month, and day or year and month, and loose tea has its own rules.
Taiwan opened imports of pu'er from mainland China in 2004, and it remains the only mainland tea category allowed in. Imports must be declared under the customs tariff code and go through import inspection with the Taiwan FDA; unpressed sun-dried maocha is classified as green tea and can't be imported.
Bingdao Old Village tea (Bingdao Zhengshan tea) was recognized as a national geographical indication product in early 2025. Its protected area is limited to Bingdao natural village within Bingdao Village, Mengku Town, Shuangjiang, Lincang. It's far smaller than pu'er's geographical indication area: protection for the name of a single village.
Pu'er's national standard only says storage should be clean, ventilated, dark, dry, and odor-free. Pu'er City's 2020 specification set warehouse temperature at 25°C or below and relative humidity at 70% or below (abolished in 2026), and Xishuangbanna's 2022 specification requires relative humidity of no more than 70%.
Pu'er isn't governed by a single national standard. Codes starting with DB53 are Yunnan local standards, T/ codes are group standards, and Q/ codes are enterprise standards; tea classification, sensory evaluation methods, and evaluation terminology each have a national standard of their own.
Pu'er's geographical indication protected area covers 11 prefectures and cities, 75 counties and districts, and 639 townships and subdistricts in Yunnan. Tea produced outside it doesn't meet the national standard's definition. The special GI mark on packaging is a round emblem with a red globe, the Great Wall, and golden ears of wheat.
GB/T 22111-2008 *Product of Geographical Indication: Pu'er Tea* is the core national standard for pu'er. From the definition, raw and ripe categories, and the 11 grades of ripe loose tea to the processing flow and the figures for moisture, water extract, and tea polyphenols, explained clause by clause.
The production date on pu'er packaging usually means the day it was pressed or packed, not the year it was picked. China's national standard says "suitable for long-term storage," while tea sold in Taiwan must by law show a specific expiration date, which may be given as year and month only.
7542-501, 7742-601, 7542-1001: the digits after the recipe code are the batch number, recording which year and which batch a cake comes from. How to read three- and four-digit batch numbers, the problem of the same number recurring ten years apart, and how batches of the same recipe differ.
7542, 7572, 8582, 8653: these four-digit numbers are pu'er recipe codes (maihao). What the first two digits, the third digit, and the last digit each mean, how raw and ripe are told apart, which codes are exceptions, and whether new brands follow the system, all in one article.
Seven cakes to a tong, 12 tong to a case, 357 grams a cake: where do these numbers come from? A rundown of tong, jian (case), and ti conversions, how bamboo sheaths and baskets are used for packing, tong formats for small cakes, and what to consider when buying a whole tong or case.
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