Pu’er tea cakes are traditionally made in a standard size of 357 grams, but why?
The weight and packaging of pu’er tea cakes are based on a measurement unit used in China, known as ‘jin’ (斤).
One jin is equal to 500 grams. Pu’er tea cakes are traditionally pressed into cakes that weigh 357 grams each, and they are often packed in sets of 7 cakes, resulting in a total weight of 2499 grams or 2.5 kilograms. This is equivalent to 5 jin, which is a round number that is easy to count during trade.