I've been looking at Chinese sites that have the decorative boxes with
the cushion protecting the cake. They are quite varied and more than
just advertising. They can be placed on the mantle for additional
aging and function like a small picture. Some have raised
inscriptions on the beengcha similar to compressed black tea which I
haven't seen in the Western market. The Western sites give you the
impression it is an oddity.

Jim

Indeed many of the cakes are used for more than advertising, but
usually the cakes that are compressed in such a way are never meant for
consumption. It's very common in China to make something look more
pretty so it can be sold or presented as an expensive gift in a nice
box. Just make sure if you intend to buy such cakes, you aren't paying
too terribly much for them. I recently have seen a huge proliferation
of cakes featuring Chinese astrology characters (rat, snake, dragon,
etc) and cartoon characters. The most famous, I suppose, would be
cakes that look like Chinese chess pieces.

I have an excellent example of this. Yesterday I was bumming around
the Fangcun market here in Guangzhou as I'm apt to do, and I was
casually looking for some of the new crop of Xi Hu Longjing just to see
their pricing; I found a decent shop that specialized in greens. This
other guy came in and wanted to buy some lower quality longjing (eg.
150RMB for 500g) but asked the lady to put it in the nicest box in the
shop to make it look cooler. The same thing goes for the Tie Guan Yin
that you can buy in the small 7-10g bags. Just because the wrapper is
nice, it doesn't mean you have a good tea.

Anyway, the moral of the story is just don't pay too much for the nice
box! heh.