Another grading system also seen on eBay: 642 cake, which is composed
of leaf grades 6 in middle, 4 on back, and 2 on the face or some such
combination. I think that's carried by dragon tea house.

other factories seem to copy recipe numbers to hope they're own version
will sell better, like changtai, which releases a 7542 cake.

Chunming factory also does 702 and 902...and i'm not sure how these are
numbered.

of course, the obligatory caveat: recipe numbers don't really point to
much of a recipe, even within a factory, as the leaf source, leaf
quality, and production methods seem to change often. . .will 2006 7542
age as well as the legendary cakes from years prior? And that's not a
rhetorical question, necessarily, btw, and I think has been asked
before


Konrad Scorciapino wrote:
> Hi Blair,
>
> > Did you also see the "0648" and "0678" cakes on eBay?
>
> Well, AFAIK, a four-digit identifier tells us [1:2] the year in which
> the blend was created, [3] the leaf quality [4] the factory number.
>
> So a '0648' cake would have its blend created on 2006, with
> fourth-grade leaves by the factory identified by the number 8 (Haiwan,
> I guess).
>
> > I can see the 888 being seen as lucky by the Chinese. But it seems
> > like the numbers are merely product IDs. Maybe a blend number.
>
> I guess you are right. Perhaps the 888 was a particularly good blend
> that other producers started to copy, and the 999 was another try.
> Besides, tea grading in a region called "lawless and wild" seems
> unprobable
>
> > Since it's printed on the package rather than stamped or handwritten
> > I'm stretching far enough to assume that it's been associated with that
> > collection of bricks from the moment they were first pressed together.
>
> Perhaps they started packaging like this not long ago.
>
> --k