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Recently I had the experience of acquiring 42 pieces of fake 2009 Menghai Dayi 7572 901 ripe tea. The counterfeiters are getting better year after year, and have become so proficient that I believe some market participants will disagree that the photos below show a fake Dayi product.

FAKE


1. There is no dapiao 大票.

The big piece of paper telling you the manufacturer, name of the tea, often year, and other vital information of the tea in question that usually comes with a jian of tea. This time it is missing.

FAKE


2. The hologram label on the tong

Take a look at the outer label. The vertical hologram
strip does not disappear completely. It has also been placed rather haphazardly and not completely pressed against the paper.

FAKE


3. The paper quality and ink quality

This is where it gets interesting. The fake product actually looks better than the real product.

Real product on the left. Fake product on the right. The fake is made of thicker paper and the brown and blue ink colours are darker.

Just look at the numbers on the blue ink colour logo on the right - the blue serial numbers are too deep and thick to be real.







4. The way the wrapper is wrapped

Here is another tell-tale sign.

The real product is on the left - note how the wrapper is wrapped with the label over the brown words.

The fake product on the right - the wrapper is wrapped such that most of the brown words are obscured.







5. The wrapper label

This is the single most useful feature in determining counterfeits.

(a) Note how the fake wrapper label is haphazardly affixed on the wrapper. It is not completely pressed on the paper. It was probably affixed manually rather than by machine.

(b) Note that the vertical hologram stripe is different on the fake and the real. The fake stripe does not completely disappear away when it goes under.

(c) Note that the real hologram stripe has the "dayi" words on it and is more shiny.

(d) Note that the real wrapper label has three colours - yellow, orange and dark orange (almost vermillion). The fake wrapper label only has two colours - yellow and orange. This is hard to tell from the photos but it is very apparent when you see it in person. This is the most obvious sign of a fake.

(e) The texture of the real wrapper label is thicker and coarser than the fake wrapper label.

FAKE
.

REAL




6. The neifei 內飛

The neifei in the fake is completely deliberately obscured by the tea leaves, as though the counterfeiter has something to hide.

FAKE




The neifei in the real cake is only partially obscured.

REAL




The neifei in the real cake has

(a) square corners

(b) distinct orange, blue and red colours

(c) clear vertical hologram

(d) blue and red numbers on the left and right margins

(e) been properly affixed on the cake

REAL


The neifei in the fake cake has

(a) rounded corners (very important distinguishing trait)

(b) no clear vertical hologram

(c) no blue numbers on the left and right margins

(d) not been properly affixed on the cake (see bottom left of label is sticking out)

FAKE




7. The visual quality of the tea leaves

The fake cake contains foreign objects, like twigs and unknown clump of white dirt.

The real cake only contains tea.

FAKE






REAL


8. Drinking the tea

It is hard to distinguish based on a visual inspection. However if you drink both teas, the fake has a smoky taste and an offensive taste of detergent. The real tea just tastes like a 7572 should and has no offensive additional taste.

Real on the left, fake on the right


Initial Conclusions

The fake puerh tea market is alive and thriving. I recently attended the 2009 Shenzhen tea expo and spotted many more Dayi fakes (apart from 7572). The only way for innocent consumers to avoid acquiring fakes is to buy from reliable known sources like Yunnan Sourcing or authentic Dayi dealers on Taobao. Here are some pictures I grabbed from Yunnan Sourcing - you can see that they sell genuine products. Please note however it would be cheaper to buy from authentic Dayi dealers on Taobao as Yunnan Sourcing marks up its prices (which they are entitled to do so).

Images courtesy of Yunnan Sourcing:





http://www.nicolastang.com/tea/articles ... 097572901/

Impressive presentation of your case, Nicolas. So, where abouts did you obtain the fakes? And is there a remedy for you?

I bought these from a tea wholesaler in Guangzhou's Fangcun market. Remedies are not normally available in China.

Ouch, sorry to hear it, but appreciate the information!

If my eye isn't deceiving me, the two holographic seals on the back also differ with the "curved" versus "straight" stroke difference mentioned in your first thread on this topic (that is, the line that would be the 4th stroke when writing the YI character out).

Wild. . .

Hi Nicholas -
Thanks for taking the time to write up such a comprehensive guide to spotting fakes. I found it most informative. Sorry about your bad luck about not being able to get compensated.

Have you forwarded a copy of your information to Taetea group ?
I bet they would be interested in protecting their trademark.

Drax wrote:Ouch, sorry to hear it, but appreciate the information!

If my eye isn't deceiving me, the two holographic seals on the back also differ with the "curved" versus "straight" stroke difference mentioned in your first thread on this topic (that is, the line that would be the 4th stroke when writing the YI character out).

Wild. . .

That is a good and correct observation. It appears that the counterfeiters like to vary that particular stroke in the logo, perhaps under the illusion that this anomaly will somehow help them evade liability for copyright infringement.

Indeed there are wilder things in the puerh community (and in China), much of which we are unaware as we are not privy to the harvesting, manufacturing and distribution process.

JAS-eTea Guy wrote:Hi Nicholas -
Thanks for taking the time to write up such a comprehensive guide to spotting fakes. I found it most informative. Sorry about your bad luck about not being able to get compensated.

You're welcome, Stephen. You seem to have an excellent selection of Menghai ripe teas on your website at reasonable prices. Before this experience I had no idea that 2009 Dayis were faked - I assumed that in this day and age the holograms and enforcement policies would deal with the problem. Google didn't help much with providing conclusive information about this issue, only containing the occasional blog post about fake Menghai from earlier years.

beecrofter wrote:Have you forwarded a copy of your information to Taetea group ?
I bet they would be interested in protecting their trademark.

I spoke to the official Taetea distributor in Hong Kong and Shenzhen about the existence of fake tea. His response was that next time I should get my tea from him instead. Fake Dayi tea is rampant. I will post up pictures of other recent Dayi fakes later. At the moment copyright laws are troublesome to enforce in China by private companies - the authorities will only assist if this is a case of toxic food (with media coverage).

Indeed, one might conclude that Taetea tacitly allows fakes to flood the market so that consumers will only go to their authorised distributors, thus allowing Taetea to retain effective supply chain management and the increased strategic, tactical and operational benefits so necessary to deal with their arch rival in the North - Xiaguan.

Great lesson very effectively explained. Sorry for the bad luck.

VERY informative post. I have heard about fakes but never seen such good write-up. Let us know if you find fakes of any other brands.

Very good info, the only problem is when you buy online (as many of us do) you never know if you're actually getting what is pictured on the website :/