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Pu-erh tea is specially packaged for trade, identification, and storage. This packaging can assist tea drinkers and collectors in determining the authenticity of the pu-erh tea.
Typical contents of a wrapped Bingchá shown at right.
Pu-erh tea cakes, or Bingchá, are almost always sold with the following:
Recently, nèi fēi have become more important in identifying and preventing counterfeits. Menghai Tea Factory in particular has begun microprinting and embossing nèi fēi to also include the vintage year and are production-specific to help identify the cake and prevent counterfeiting through a surfeit of different brand labels.
When bought in large quantities, pu-erh tea is generally sold in stacks, referred to as a tŏng (筒), which are wrapped in bamboo shoot husks, bamboo stem husks, or coarse paper. Some tongs of vintage pu-erh will contain a tŏng piào (筒票), or tong ticket, but it is less common to find them in productions past the year 2000. The number of bĭngchá in a tŏng varies depending on the weight of individual bĭngchá. For instance, one tŏng can contain either of these:
Twelve tŏngs are referred to as being one jiàn (件), although some producers/factories vary how many tŏng equal one jiàn. A jiàn of tea that is bound together in a loose bamboo basket will usually have a large batch ticket (大票; pinyin: dàpiào) affixed to its side that will indicate information such as the batch number of the tea in a season, the production quantities, tea type, and the factory where it was produced.
A tong of recipe 7742 tea cakes wrapped in bamboo shoot husks shown at right.