Puerh History - Pu-erh.Net

„Mushroom shaped tea appeared in 1912. It was invented at that time in order to prevent the tea from going mouldy during the transportation. It was produced in Xia-Guan and Fo-Hai (two cities in south China) with the trademark "Bao-Yan". The production was then stopped in 1966. In 1986, the production was resumed due to the request of Buddhists in Tibet.“

„At the beginning of 1990s, many small tea factories were born. Some of them started to use class level 3 (or even higher) raw tea (which was only available for emperors in the past) instead of level 6 (or even lower) raw tea (which was the traditional material for producing Pu Erh Tea).“