Thirty-four teas, each given a full label

Why this shop is built out of borders

A label of this kind is an argument that the contents were worth the engraving. The border does real work: it separates the claim from the description, gives origin and weight their own compartments, and leaves the centre free for one clear photograph of the leaf. Chinese tea suits it because the category already thinks in tiers and named places — a first pick from one lake shore, buds only, a spring batch — and a compartmented label is the honest way to keep those facts apart instead of blurring them into a slogan. The engraved botany is drawn rather than photographed so it reads as reference material, not as a second product. Gold is used as line, never as fill, which keeps the cream paper the brightest thing on the page. The ornament is dense, but every panel in it carries a fact.