I must confess I don’t know what category of tea this is. Maybe hei cha? It tastes like a cross between a ripe pu erh, aged white, and red (Hong cha). It is clean tasting, with notes of ripe age, tart, and black tea. It is really different. It is not at all pretty, it is very dark, with stems, broken leaves, and whole leaves. An interesting one that I think ripe pu erh lovers would enjoy.
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Yep that would be Hunan heicha.
This doesn’t sound like one of the classic Hunan Hei’s, at least not any that I’ve encountered in Hunan or any of the many ‘chacheng’ I’ve visited in other places in China (at one point I had close to 100lbs of different Hunan Hei’s aging in my living room, all of which I sourced myself in China). ‘Qing zhuan’ is the ‘dark tea’ associated typically with Hubei Province. It’s known for systematically blending (usually three) different grades of tea in the outer, inner, and center of the brick. It is rather tightly compressed. I’m unsure of exactly how much post-fermentation it undergoes but, if any, it’s very little—I would guess even less than classic Hunan Hei’s (which undergo far less than ripe pu’er). The bricks that I have seen are dark green. The tea tastes to me like very smooth ‘black tea’ (hongcha). Quite delicious. It seems that the tea in question here is from a northern Hunan prefecture that might border Hubei (it certainly seems closer to Hubei than to Anhua/Yiyang, the region where classic Hunan Hei’s are produced). Could be a Hunan version of a basically Hubei-style tea. Just a guess. Very interesting.
I think I got to it because of “qing” in its name. It is obviously few years older now from previous tasting. Almost dismissed it on the account of unbreakability.
Yep that would be Hunan heicha.
This doesn’t sound like one of the classic Hunan Hei’s, at least not any that I’ve encountered in Hunan or any of the many ‘chacheng’ I’ve visited in other places in China (at one point I had close to 100lbs of different Hunan Hei’s aging in my living room, all of which I sourced myself in China). ‘Qing zhuan’ is the ‘dark tea’ associated typically with Hubei Province. It’s known for systematically blending (usually three) different grades of tea in the outer, inner, and center of the brick. It is rather tightly compressed. I’m unsure of exactly how much post-fermentation it undergoes but, if any, it’s very little—I would guess even less than classic Hunan Hei’s (which undergo far less than ripe pu’er). The bricks that I have seen are dark green. The tea tastes to me like very smooth ‘black tea’ (hongcha). Quite delicious. It seems that the tea in question here is from a northern Hunan prefecture that might border Hubei (it certainly seems closer to Hubei than to Anhua/Yiyang, the region where classic Hunan Hei’s are produced). Could be a Hunan version of a basically Hubei-style tea. Just a guess. Very interesting.
I think I got to it because of “qing” in its name. It is obviously few years older now from previous tasting. Almost dismissed it on the account of unbreakability.