In October last year, in Hangzhou, samples of packaging design recommended for Xi Hu Long Jing green tea, one of the most famous Chinese teas. Tea producers, regardless of the type of packaging, are recommended to use a light green background, a stylized image of the hills around Lake Xi Hu in three shades of green and an image of stone pagodas — one of the local attractions. The classiest ceramic packaging is proposed to be executed in the already mentioned light green color and to provide its lid with a characteristic pagoda-shaped finial. The standardized packaging is part of the Xi Hu Long Jing protection package, which already includes a digital control system for the production and sale of this tea.
Tracking, monitoring, and branding of famous teas, of course, are steps in the right direction; in theory, all these measures can lead to complete transparency of the same Xi Hu Long Jing — but in reality they will only work if all, without exception, tea trade will be controlled by a unified automated information system within every tea consuming country (similar to systems applied to the wine trade in some countries). In the meantime, while information transparency is provided only by the initiative of producers, and a trader can still keep on the same shelf tea, whose life can be traced back to the bush, and tea, buying which the customer has to take the trader’s word for it, all these tea origin protection systems have no real prospects.
Olga Nikandrova & Denis Shumakov. Teatips.info. 2021