Cha Bing
Worker with freshly compressed pu’er tea discus ( cha bing ). Anning, Yunnan
Cha bing ( Chinese: 茶餅 ) refers to the kind compressed tea that takes the form of a discus. The term has been translated as “tea cake” or “cake tea”. These translations can be quite confusing as to whether they refer to other things, such as a dessert with tea, or tealeaves for making pastries, etc. In this site, we try to use the term tea discus, which is a more precise translation of the concept of the Chinese term.
Cha bing is an old form of delivering tealeaves to the consumer, particularly popular between the 6th to the 14th century. Considering the logistics and packaging capabilities of the time, it was very appropriate.
There are other forms of compressed tealeaves besides cha bing, such as bricks, tuo ( mushroom shape ), and stuffing into bamboos, oranges etc.
Nowadays, the term is sometimes expressed as bing cha ( Chinese: 餅茶 ). We think that the old term is more accurate conceptually and choose to stay with it.
The term cha bing is used in these articles and discussions:
- “Raw” Puer or “Cooked” Puer?
- A cha bing is freshly compressed in the press
- A cha bing made to look old
- A faked antique pu’er chabing
- A pu’er chabing from the 1940’s
- A puer cha bing warehouse
- Bulang Shengcha cha bing
- Bulang Shengcha Pu’er
- Cheap tea
- Defending Against Cancer
- Dianhong Golden, Yunnan’s Black Tea
- From Crude Provision to Treasure: Origin of Dark Tea
- From Shengcha to Shu Cha, a Microbial Change
- fu yuan chang cha bing
- Fuding Semi-black: White Tea with a Twist
- Green Tea: Production
- Iced tea? Second thoughts
- Is Pu’er Cha Bing an Investment Tool?
- Laos Shengcha
- Leo Kwan: How Tea Has Chosen Me
- Master Zou Bing Liang inspecting two batches of maocha for blend
- Master Zou Bing Liang signing a puer cha bing in his office
- Naming of a Tea
- Post-fermented Tea (dark tea)
- Pu’er cha bings in columns of seven discuses each
- Pu’er: Myth of Origin & Reality of Blending
- Puer, a Post-fermented Tea
- Qizi Cha Bing for $88
- Song Cultivar Huangzhi Xiang Dancong
- TCM & Your Physiology
- Tea Compression: Making of a Cha Bing
- Tea List Gallery: Pu’er and other Dark Teas
- Tea List Gallery: White & Other Lightly Oxidized Teas
- To blanch or not to blanch? That is the question
- Tong Qing Blue Label Shengcha Cha Bing
- Tong Qing Shengcha Bing, photographed at 3 yrs
- Tong Qing Shengcha Bing, photographed at 3 yrs
- Tong Qing Shengcha Bing, photographed at 3 yrs
- Tong Qing Shengcha Bing, photographed at 3 yrs
- Two puer discus ( cha bing )
- Two red label “Zhongcha” brand pu’er chabings
- What are Compressed Teas?
- Why does China export all those cheap teas?
- Worker with freshly compressed cha bings
- Worker with freshly compressed tea discus
- Zhongcha brand old pu’er chabing
