Tea export packaging: bulk cartons to retail packs

Tea export packaging comes in two broad formats: bulk packs, such as cartons, cases or sacks lined with an inner bag, and small packs, such as tins, boxes, pouches and tea bags, filled before the tea leaves China. The net weight of each immediate packing sets the HS subheading, with 3 kg as the dividing line in the World Customs Organization’s nomenclature, and in Morocco green tea in packings of 20 kg or more pays 2.5% duty instead of 30%. Liners based on aluminium foil or metallised film serve as a moisture barrier, and China’s gunpowder and chunmee standards cap moisture at 7.0%.

Why pack weight matters: HS codes and Morocco’s 20 kg line

Within each type of tea, the Harmonized System splits by the content of each immediate packing. In its 2022 edition, green tea “in immediate packings of a content not exceeding 3 kg” is 0902.10 and other green tea is 0902.20; black and partly fermented tea split the same way into 0902.30 and 0902.40. The guide to HS codes for tea explains how customs services read “immediate packing”.

The split shows in the trade. In 2025 China exported 145,506 tonnes of green tea in immediate packings of 3 kg or less and 231,614 tonnes in other packings, so 38.6% of its green tea by volume left in small packs (China’s figures in UN Comtrade; share calculated). Senegal (23,527 t), Mauritania (20,117 t), Ghana (17,757 t), Côte d’Ivoire (16,511 t) and Mali (10,303 t) took the most small-pack green tea, while Morocco alone took 91,128 tonnes in larger packings, 39.3% of that subheading. For Tunisia’s imports by packing, see our guide to tea imports into Tunisia.

Morocco draws a second line at 20 kg. Since 1 January 2024 its tariff has charged 30% duty on green tea in packings of 3 kg or less and in packings over 3 kg and under 20 kg, and 2.5% on packings with a content of 20 kg or more (customs circular 6619/210; WTO Trade Policy Review, 2024). Decree 2-13-711 of 4 March 2015 also requires tea to be packed in closed, clean and dry containers, requires establishments that pack tea to be authorised and lists the sale of bulk tea among unlawful practices. Rates, VAT and the sanitary authorisation are covered in the guide to importing green tea into Morocco.

Sources: World Customs Organization, HS 2022; Moroccan Customs, circular 6619/210 (2024); WTO Trade Policy Review of Morocco (2024)

Tea export packaging formats: bulk cartons, retail packs and tea bags

The table lists the formats described by reference works, a Shenzhen standard (repealed in August 2025) and US customs rulings; none of them sets a standard net weight for Chinese export tea.

Tea packaging formats described in reference and official sources

The US rulings show how the outer pack can move tea between subheadings: US Customs and Border Protection put the same pouches of green tea under 0902.20 in bulk cartons of up to 50 lb and under 0902.10 in retail tins or boxes of a pound or less, while 5 lb bags of loose black tea went to 0902.30, the small-pack subheading.

Tea bags have their own Chinese standards: GB/T 24690-2018 Teabag (袋泡茶), in force since 1 June 2018, and GB/T 25436-2023 Filter paper for teabags (茶叶滤纸), in force since 1 April 2024, which replaced the separate standards for heat-seal and non-heat-seal filter paper. Tea bag materials are compared in our guide to tea bag materials and standards.

Carton size also decides how well a container fills: the GDV handbook notes that cartons can be sized to fill containers almost completely, and the guide to tea container capacity works through the counts for 20 ft and 40 ft boxes.

Moisture barrier: why inner liners and foil laminates are used

Dry tea takes up water from the air. The GDV handbook describes the sorption isotherms of two black teas as rising steeply, “reflecting the tea’s strong hygroscopicity”, and calls mouldy or musty tea worthless. China’s standards cap moisture at 7.0% for every grade of gunpowder and chunmee (GB/T 14456.4-2016 and GB/T 14456.5-2016; see the guide to gunpowder tea grades). The international green tea standard, ISO 11287:2011, sets no moisture limit for tea as received; it requires “closed, clean, and dry containers made of material which does not affect the quality of the tea”.

Shenzhen’s local standard on tea packaging, storage and transport, DB4403/T 88-2020, in force from 1 October 2020 until its repeal on 25 August 2025, listed three protective measures for packs:

• Moisture: laminates based on aluminium foil or metallised film may be used as a moisture barrier.
• Oxidation: airtight plastic or laminated bags with vacuum packing, but more breathable materials for dark and compressed teas.
• Light: light-proof packaging.

The same standard required transport packaging to keep tea from light, damp and air, paper in contact with tea to meet GB 4806.8, and inner polyethylene, polypropylene or laminated bags to meet GB 4806.7.

A study by the Indian Institute of Packaging (online 2024, in print 2026) tested ten bulk export packs on Indian orthodox black tea from Assam, stored at 38 °C and 90% relative humidity for four months. The tea’s moisture rose during storage from 2.93% at the start, against a critical level of 7.00%. The packs that lasted longest, 105 days, were a sandwich bag and a polypropylene woven sack with an LDPE-EVOH-LDPE liner, and four-ply multiwall paper sacks with a 7 µm aluminium foil/poly liner or a 12 µm metallised PET/poly liner; the authors estimate 315 days for them at 27 °C and 65% relative humidity. They note that EVOH coextruded with LDPE has one of the lowest oxygen permeabilities, and that aluminium foil and metallised PET give a superior oxygen barrier and a good moisture barrier. These results concern that black tea in those bulk packs; the study did not test Chinese green tea.

Storage after packing counts too. The Shenzhen standard recommended keeping green tea at no more than 10 °C and 50% relative humidity, and dark and compressed teas at no more than 25 °C and 70%, and required stock checks, including the moisture of the stacks, every month, or every week from April to September. The storage of pu-erh is covered in our guide to pu-erh tea grades.

Chinese standards for tea packaging and storage

Chinese standards on tea packaging and storage (SAMR records checked October 2026; GB 4806.1: USDA, April 2026)

The grade standards point to these texts: the gunpowder, chunmee and jasmine tea standards, GB/T 14456.4-2016, GB/T 14456.5-2016 and GB/T 22292-2017, all refer packaging to GH/T 1070 and storage to GB/T 30375.

GB/T 30375: tea storage

GB/T 30375-2013, Tea storage (茶叶贮存), is a recommended national standard. It was published on 31 December 2013 and took effect on 22 June 2014. A review on 17 May 2021 concluded that it should be revised. The revision, plan 20251082-T-442, was issued on 30 April 2025 with a 12-month schedule; it is to replace the 2013 edition in full and to take effect six months after publication. In October 2026 the official record still listed the plan as awaiting approval and the 2013 edition as current. The standard’s requirements for tea warehouses are summarised in the guide to keeping tea fresh in transit.

GB 23350-2021: excessive packaging rules for tea sold in China

GB 23350-2021 is China’s mandatory standard against excessive packaging of food and cosmetics, in force since 1 September 2023. It covers the sales packaging of food produced, sold and imported in China. According to the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR, 市场监管总局), it does not apply to food exported from China or to transport packaging.

For tea sold in China, Amendment No. 2 has applied since 1 March 2025 (official record); a Q&A on it published by local market regulators dates its release to 25 March 2024. According to that Q&A and China Quality News, SAMR’s newspaper, it tightened the rules for tea:

• Layers: no more than three, against four before. The inner film bags of tea bags, and the paper, plastic or foil wrapped tight around compressed tea, do not count as layers.
• Void ratio: the “necessary space coefficient” k (必要空间系数) used to assess a pack’s void ratio is now 9.0 for compressed tea and 13.0 for other tea; under Amendment No. 1 of 2022, it was 13.0 for tea and related products.
• Weight and materials: the packaging of tea, tea products or flavoured tea may weigh no more than 8 times the product it holds, and tea packaging may not use precious metals or hongmu (红木) hardwoods.

Tea produced before 1 March 2025 that meets the earlier text may be sold until the end of its shelf life. A third amendment was open for public comment in October 2026.

GB 4806: food-contact materials

China’s food-contact framework starts with GB 4806.1-2016, released on 19 October 2016 and in force since 19 October 2017. Substances migrating from a material must not endanger human health or change the food’s composition, structure, colour, smell or taste, and products must carry a statement of conformity and a “for food contact” mention or a spoon-and-chopsticks symbol, unless their food use is obvious. Product standards add specific limits, for example GB 4806.7-2023 for plastics, GB 4806.8-2022 for paper and board, GB 4806.9-2023 for metals and GB 4806.13-2023 for composite materials, as listed by the US Department of Agriculture in April 2026.

For tea leaving China, GACC Order No. 249, in force since 1 January 2022, requires export food producers to make sure that packaging and transport meet food safety requirements (Article 45). Export food must meet the importing country’s standards or the contract, plus any special treaty requirements; where none of these sets a requirement, it must meet China’s national food safety standards (Article 38).

Export cartons: marks, inspection and wooden cases

• Marks. Under Order No. 249 (Article 46), the export food producer marks the transport packaging with its record-filing number, the product name, the production batch number and the production date. Where the importing country or the contract requires otherwise, the directly affiliated customs office (直属海关) can agree to other marks, provided the product stays traceable.
• Shipping marks. The China Agriculture Press reference lists seven kinds of marks for tea cases: the main shipping mark (唛头), secondary marks, the product name, the package number, the destination, the net weight (or gross and net weight) and the country or place of origin. Pack marking for Libya is covered in our guide to Libya’s import rules.
• Handling symbols. China’s standard for them is GB/T 191-2025, a modified adoption of ISO 780:2015, in force since 1 March 2026.
• Inspection. SN/T 0912-2000, the inspection sector’s rules for inspecting the packaging of imported and exported tea (进出口茶叶包装检验规程), was still listed as in force in October 2026. Separately, the China Agriculture Press reference lists nine tests in tea packaging inspection, from the thickness and moisture of case boards to the strength and moisture resistance of tea cases, with checks of filter paper, fluorescent substances and aluminium foil.
• Wood. In countries that apply ISPM 15, the wood packaging standard of the International Plant Protection Convention, solid-wood cases, crates and pallets must be treated and marked; packaging made wholly of processed wood, such as plywood, is exempt.

Keep names, net weights, marks and lot numbers identical on the cartons and on the papers listed in the guide to Chinese tea export documents.

Tea labelling: EU and Morocco pointers

Labelling will be covered in a guide of its own. The main texts are:

• European Union: Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers, applied since 13 December 2014. Packaging materials fall under the food-contact framework, Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004, and plastics under Regulation (EU) No 10/2011.
• Morocco: Decree 2-13-711 makes tea labelling follow Decree 2-12-389 on the labelling of food products, and requires the label to name the country of origin when it differs from the place of provenance.

Packaging checklist for a tea purchase contract

• Net weight of each immediate packing, which sets the HS subheading; for Morocco, a content of at least 20 kg per packing if the 2.5% rate is wanted.
• Inner bag or liner: material and structure, sealing, and vacuum or nitrogen flushing if wanted.
• Outer pack: carton, case or sack, outside dimensions and stacking strength, with ISPM 15 treatment for solid wood.
• Food-contact compliance: a declaration of compliance with the destination’s rules for every material that touches the tea.
• Moisture: a maximum at loading, for example 7.0% for gunpowder or chunmee, tested with method GB 5009.3-2016 (the grade standards cite GB/T 8304, withdrawn in 2017).
• Marks and labels: the Order No. 249 marks, the buyer’s shipping mark and handling symbols on cartons, and the destination’s label on retail packs.

This guide is general information, checked in October 2026, not legal advice: confirm the requirements with the importing country’s authorities or a customs broker before shipping.