Teas should be like wine - "appellacion d' origine controlee", name and a
year. Otherwise - too much fraud possibilities. I need to call We Jia Bao
about this. he is a former field geologist himself, he will understand

Yes, this is a problem with the whole puer industry. You pretty much
have to develop a relationship with a vendor whom you trust. Don't
assume that because you recognize the outer tissue paper wrapper that
you know the tea inside. These wrappers are not sealed in any way and
there is nothing to prevent someone from unwrapping a cake and putting
their own wrapper on it. This is actually a fairly common practice.
Also, in China a given factory will often use whatever paper wrappers
that may be handy meaning that there is often no real link between the
wrapper and the tea inside. This is why you see the larger factories
imbed a label or piece of ribbon into the cake itself during the
manufacturing process, to help prevent forgeries. There is a move
lately to imbed logo impressions into the tea cakes directly.

But another thing you must realize is that there can be significant
variation within a single year from a single factory. Many factories
will process the leaves from the farmers as they are brought in and
wrap them all in the same paper. Consequently cakes made from leaf of
farmer #1 and cakes made from leaf of farmer #2 may taste very
different but have the exact same wrapper. Some years are more
repeatable than others. Product coming from the factory's own farms is
often more repeatable.

Puer production in the minority villages is also very much like a folk
craft where individual skill and tribal tradition dictate the process.
Repeatability is not highly sought after.

Mike Petro
http://www.pu-erh.net
remove the "filter" in my email address to reply