For once I wasn't confused. The wordplay only becomes obvious with the
PinYin. It could only mean something to someone like myself who would
think a tuo is a tuo especially limited to talking about puer. I just
couldn't figure out why the seller keep refering to 'horseback tuocha'.
There is no PinYin on the packaging except for the XiaGuan TuoCha
logo. I didn't get it until he sent the character. It is the
Simplified character which is on Unihan but not in the radical/stroke
index. You need the Traditional character to find it. I put on my
pimp hat askew for analysis and context but it lead to more confusion.
Menghai uses the PinYin and characters for Tuocha on their Dayi
packaging. So I think in general it can be any little bowl shaped
puer. Maybe Xiaguan used it first.

Jim

samarkand wrote:
> The answer is rather simple.
>
> Tuocha generally means the little bowl shape compressed tea from Xia Guan
>
> Although both are 'TUO', they mean different things as Alex pointed out.
>
> Xia Guan Horseback Tuocha means "Tea that is carried on horseback" - this
> can be any tea in any shapes and sizes, it so happened that Xia Guan
> probably decided to have a little wordplay on the word "tuo" on their Ma Bei
> Tuo Cha products, so as not to repeat the same tone teice.
>
> Hope this clears up some confusion
>
> Danny