Wrapped in Yunnan tradition
Michael first noticed the handmade wrapping cloths in a small tea warehouse outside Kunming. The owner, a third-generation hei cha presser, kept his bricks stacked under simple cotton squares, each inked with the weight — a system unchanged for decades. When Michael asked where he could find more, the man pointed to a textile workshop two villages away. There, three women still print cloths with carved wood blocks and iron-ink, using the same pigment recipe that stains pu’er cakes and hei cha bricks across Yunnan. They agreed to a custom run for us: four sizes, cleanly hemmed, pre-washed so they won’t shrink on first contact with steam. Every cloth carries the weight it was cut for — 250 g, 400 g, 800 g, 1 kg — stamped in a straightforward, workman-like typeface. No branding, no gloss. Just the sort of quiet, functional thing you’d find in a tea producer’s own storeroom. Sourced by Michael Zhan during a spring buying trip, these wraps now travel from that workshop to your own shelf, where they’ll keep your bricks dust-free and your collection legible.