Hey friends!
Today's post is an overdue one, but here it is: I finally have finished editing the recording of my presentation at the Northwest Tea Festival. Many thanks to the amazing Chris Shirley (@357leaves on Instagram) for recording this for me, and to Josh for editing the video together- cutting out the technical difficulties and consolidating it into one coherent video- thank you so much!! For a full recap of this event, please check my previous post to read just how amazing it was.
Below is the rough transcript of the video to follow along with, as well, with the slides embedded here again for your pleasure. It does not include everything in it, but it does have the majority of the information and talking points. Thank you all so much and I hope you enjoy learning about heicha!
Introduction:
Hello and welcome! My name is Neldon Hamblin, also known as “Tea With Neldon” throughout social media and on my website, teawithneldon.com, where I specialize in Chinese teas, tea education, investigative reporting, and product reviews. I’ve been drinking tea for about a decade now and have been actively blogging and involved in the industry for the past 4 years, during which I’ve worked with some of the largest brands in China (predominantly heicha and yancha companies) as a branding consultant to expand their reach into a western market. I have also published groundbreaking investigative reports on external market manipulation within the Vietnamese tea industry and several educational guides for different tea types, with the most popular being my heicha and fuzhuan heicha guide. I’m a bit of a fucha fanatic, so naturally I wanted to spend my presentation today talking about the wonderful world of heicha. Throughout this session, you can expect to learn everything from production techniques to geography to cultural influences and more. To start, we’ll cover what exactly heicha is and how it’s processed, the characteristics of the teas, the different types of heicha by province, and the cultural importance of the drink.
Tea Making Primer:
Now, a brief intro to processing tea, a sort of "processing primer" for tea as I will be using terms like "kill green" throughout the presentation. Basically, there are six to eight stages of processing tea. You start out by picking the leaves, and then they undergo what is called "fixing" or "kill green" ("shāqīng" (殺青), where basically they take and pan fry the leaves to stop oxidation, and it just makes it so that the leaves stay in that sort of stage and don't really change much- like with white teas, which are basically untouched save for drying, and green teas, which are very lightly pan fried to fix them and stop oxidation. After that you have the rolling process. where they put it in these big rolling machines and they basically press these leaves into different shapes, so like Taiwanese balled oolong is a great example of a rolled oolong. They put it into a machine and sort of knead it it like you would a bread dough to make the leaves nice and tight and make the tea oils mix together. For heicha, we have a unique stage called "wodui," which I'll cover later. After that, we have drying, steaming, and pressing- where they take the leaves and make them supple and pliable and press them into cakes or large bricks, to be set aside for aging or for ease of transportation.
What is Heicha?
So, what exactly is heicha? “Hei” translates to “dark,” or “black” and is one of the 6 tea types in Chinese tea. There are some…inconsistencies in naming, so I generally just refer to “heicha” referring more towards fermented teas NOT from Yunnan- for context, Western vendors tend to translate it as “dark tea” because of existing Western tea classifications (“black tea” being “hongcha” in China, etc.) and avoiding any mixups there. Heicha, like many Chinese teas, is a tea with origins shrouded in mysteries; the most common origin story for heicha is as follows:
"On the ancient Silk Road, one day a caravan that transported tea encountered rain and the valuable tea got drenched and moist. The tea merchants, of course, were very upset, but it was a pity to throw it away so they went to a village, hopefully to rest and to dry the drenched tea. But at that time, many villagers had died from dysentery and they had nothing to eat or drink. The tea merchants gave the tea to sick and poor villagers. The result was splendid, villagers were all healed by drinking tea. Since then Anhua Dark Tea is known for its medicinal effects and dark tea is associated with medicinal benefits in China."
I won’t cover those health benefits as I don’t like to talk about things I don’t know, and whether or not the health benefit claims hold up is another topic entirely. Though, we will discuss the nutritional benefits of heicha as they serve an important role in its popularity and are a key part of the cultural importance of this category of tea.
Heicha has been traditionally manufactured in Sichuan, Yunnan, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan, Shaanxi, and Guangxi Provinces (Witherspoon 2022). Examples of heicha include shou puerh (a post-fermented tea from Yunnan Province- arguably the most common global heicha), Liu Bao (post-fermented tea from Guangxi Province), and Liu An (post-fermented tea from Anhui province). Interestingly enough, heicha production accounts for 12.75% of all Chinese tea production, second only to green teas (Witherspoon 2022). The flowchart below, while not nearly an exhaustive one, covers some of the different types of heicha from the Chinese provinces that produce the most heicha.
Now, heicha is a post-fermented tea, which means that after processing and undergoing the kill-green stage, the leaves are processed into large, wet piles which are left to ferment, hence the term “post fermented,” or “Hòu fāxiào” (后发酵).
This process varies by each type of heicha, but a piling (or “wodui”) is common throughout most of the types. Wodui is a tightly controlled trade-secret in a lot of areas, though the basics of wodui are fairly well known and documented. In essence, it’s composting- controlled decomposition of biologic material- but with tea. In recent years, wodui has become more controlled by the Chinese government, with restrictions being put in place to reduce the amount of contaminants. For example, shou used to be produced on the cement floor overtime, with large batches of lower-quality material being put in batches to ferment, essentially seasoning the cement and creating a “house recipe” or flavor unique to each factory thanks to that built up microbiome. Think of it like seasoning a teapot; nowadays, wodui for shou is generally done on tile flooring or metal tables, as they are more sanitary. Regardless, wodui in some form or another involves taking the leaf material and piling it to age and ferment.
Why Heicha?
Fermenting tea helps preserve the tea for long distances. Pressing the maocha into cakes for storage served two purposes: 1.) shipping and trading convenience (tighter cakes = more space for more tea = more income) and 2.) preserving the tea leaves for future drinking. Heicha, historically, is a commodiTEA, being exported along the ChaMaGuDao (“Tea Horse Road”) to the bordering countries, i.e. the central steppes, Tibetan Autonomous Region, etc.
These areas are rugged and while edible plants do grow and thrive in the regions, they tend to be lacking in diversity and availability of essential vitamins and nutrients. In this case, heicha served a valuable purpose: to provide those essential vitamins and nutrients to the peoples living in these rugged areas as a supplement to their diets, which tend to be meat and fat heavy to keep up with the energy requirements of living in such a rugged region. Traditionally, heicha in these regions is boiled and drunk in an almost broth-like way with milk or butter to increase caloric density, like in Tibet with their famous “po cha,” though it is also enjoyed gongfu elsewhere. The predominant conclusion with heicha is that it holds up quite well to brewing and many will thermos brew it, boil it for hours on end, or sit and do a casual gongfu session with heicha- it’s versatile yet highly enjoyable.
Yunnan
Let’s get the elephant out of the room- yes, puerh is technically heicha and is considered by many Western tea drinkers to be a post-fermented tea from Yunnan. Shou puerh is arguably the most common type of heicha and most of you here, if you’re seasoned tea drinkers, have had it at some point in your lives. Deliciously earthy and rich, shou puerh tends to be what I would consider the cornerstone of the heicha market. Sheng is not considered heicha as the key production factor for heicha is that it undergoes some form of piling, which is a biologic reaction- yes, sheng does age and improve with time, but the enzymatic oxidation is slightly different than the wet piling fermentation- think of it more like storing wine for aging, whereas heicha is a biological reaction from the inoculation of bacteria and other microbes during wodui. Additionally, shou puerh is relatively new, only about 50 years old or so, being pioneered by DaYi (Menghai Tea Factory) and Kunming Tea Factory in 1973. Outside of that, there aren’t really special fermented teas produced in Yunnan, so let’s move to our next region, Shaanxi.
Shaanxi
Shaanxi is arguably my favorite region for heicha and is the birthplace of my favorite heicha: fu zhuan cha. Now, fu zhuan cha (“fu brick tea”) comes from Xianyang City in Shaanxi province, where the process for making fu cha originated, about 600 years ago during the Ming Dynasty. This location is near the confluence of the Wei River and the Jing River, which also meant that raw materials could be shipped in via boat to Xingyang for processing. Fu cha gets its name from the processing: fu cha traditionally was processed into bricks (“砖,” or “Zhuān,” meaning “brick”) during the “dog days of Summer,” (“三伏天,” “Sān fútiān”), or the three periods with the hottest and most humid days of the year, according to the traditional Chinese Ganzhi (“干支”) calendar. There are other origin stories, as with most famous Chinese teas, but this is generally the most accepted one.
Fu cha is made slightly differently than other teas; like with most heicha, the base material is quite stemmy, with the grade for fu cha being second grade or higher; usually being one bud to three or more leaves. The pickings must also contain longer stems, as the stems create air pockets in the bricks, allowing for a higher growth rate for the golden flowers within and a layer of sweetness to the brewed tea. The hei mao cha undergoes the kill-green stage and is then treated with a bit of brewed fu cha or water in the wok to steam the leaves and avoid burning (“打浆,” dǎjiāng,” or “灌浆,” “guànjiāng”). Generally, the amount of liquid added to the pile during this process is around 10% of the weight of the fresh leaves, but can be adjusted depending on the material used. Usually, younger and fresher leaves have less water added and older leaves have more; spring tea also uses less, whereas summer and autumn pickings use more liquids. Again, this varies, but is generally kept to that 10% ratio. This material is then pressed, either by hand or machine, into bricks. The bricks are taken to a sort of fermentation chamber, where they rest for anywhere between 30 days and 6 weeks in a controlled environment for the jin hua to bloom within. This process varies by producer, factory, and techniques used, and the exact specifications of these fermentation chambers is a trade secret that is kept tighter than Fort Knox. Companies within China will rarely, if ever, divulge hints into what these rooms are or how exactly the golden flowers grow, so there is a caution to those sensitive to gluten or with celiac as some companies do use a wheat and fu cha spray to inoculate the hei maocha with jin hua.
Hunan
Hunan is quite a fascinating place for tea and history lovers. Hunan is the largest heicha producing province by far, specifically focused in and around AnHua county. Now, one of the most fascinating things about heicha in Hunan is that it is one of the earliest tea types in all of China. MaWangDui, an archaeological site in Hunan dating to around 193-140 BCE, contained several tea tools dating from the Qin and Han dynasties- with the traces of tea being genetically identified as dark tea from Hunan- making this the oldest and most-attested early heicha. AnHua heicha, as it is more commonly referred to, is made solely of hei mao cha (“rough black tea”). This hei mao cha is sorted into 9 grades, from top to lowest-tier: Ya Jian, Bai Mao Jian, Tian Jian, Gong Jian, Xiang Jian, Sheng Jian and Bao Jian. Ya Jian is extremely uncommon and rarely makes it outside of AnHua as it rarely becomes commercial material, instead being reserved for the highest quality of heichas. After that, the next highest grade that is readily commercially available is tian jian, which we will explore a bit more in a moment, as it is both a grade of tea and a type of heicha available in the west.
With Hunan heicha, they process the leaves through kill green, rolling, piling, and drying. In general, Hunanese heicha undergoes a shorter wodui (wet piling) process than other regions, instead spending the bulk of its time fermenting after being compressed. Uniquely, Hunan heicha tends to be smoky compared to other regions due to the historic processing method of smoking the tea over pine wood as a final drying step, rather than simply pan frying or sun drying the tea. Similar to the “puerh bubble” of the 1990s and 2000s, heicha from AnHua county in Hunan Province has more than tripled, resulting in an explosion of heicha domestically and a slow but consistent stream to the Western world.
Because Hunan is the largest heicha producing province, we see many different types, including the following: hei zhuan, fu zhuan, hua zhuan, tianjian, qian and Shi Liang, to name a few. Now, in the heart of Hunan in the xuefeng mountains, we find a relatively uncommon and unassuming coin of tea: 渠江薄片茶 (qujiang thin slices). There is a case to be made for this to be the oldest attested imperial tribute tea with over 500 years as a tribute.
Now onto the “zhuans” or the brick teas; hei zhuan, fu zhuan, and hua zhuan. These all follow similar processes to fu zhuan heicha, though they don’t undergo the “steeping” process where the broken leaves are covered in brewed teas. These brick teas all tend to have similar characteristics, with hei zhuan and hua zhuan being, in essence, the only difference is the grading of leaves used. Hei zhuan uses a larger ratio of large/coarse leaves than hua zhuan.
TianJian is unique. It is the highest commercially available grade of heicha from AnHua, but it is also a type of heicha in itself. TianJian heicha is often sold as loose leaf, basket compressed, or in bricks. TianJian gets its distinctive piney flavor from being dried in qīxīng zào (七星灶). This unique oven grants the tea a delightfully warm piney flavor from the wood used to fire the 7 chambers of the oven.
Shi Liang, qianliang, and hualiang are all the “log” teas. These teas are all named after their respective measured weights; Shi Liang Cha is 365 grams (0.365kg), bai liang cha is 3,650g (3.65kg), and qian liang cha is 36,500g (36.5kg). These log teas are made by first steaming the leaves and funneling them into a three layered cylinder of woven bamboo, knotweed, and palm leaves. Then a team of 5 to 8 people will simultaneously compress the tea using leverage and then tighten each section with thick bamboo stripling. Once firmly compressed the Qian Liang "logs" are dried in the sun and then finally cured for months in an indoor warehouse.
Hubei
Hubei has a key role in the history of Chinese tea. For the latter half of the 1800s, 60% of Chinese tea was shipped out through Hankou. Chibi, or “red Cliff” is where Hubei got its heicha start. Hubei produces only about 3 types of heicha: a type of heicha known as old green brick tea, or lao qing zhuan, the most popular, then two minor teas: mizhuan (“rice brick”) and a heicha specific to Yanglin village (simple referred to as “hubei heicha” in the West). For lao qing zhuan, the leaves are dried in the sun, fried until soft, kneaded, and piled until those on the top of the pile turned orange and those in the middle darkened to the color of ‘pig liver.’ The tea pile was then turned inside out, until color and fermentation was relatively even. Finally, the tea would be spread outdoors for another round of sun-drying, at which point the leaves would be considered finished maocha. At this point the tea could be sold loose, or pressed into its usual final product, Lao qing zhuan.
Mizhuan on the other hand is a compressed brick of tea powder or flaked teas; this is the brick of old- they’re hard and compressed tighter than any other brick, save the iron cakes from Xiaguan. To make these, tea flakes or powder are steamed and often mixed with some form of binder, and in the past, these binders have been…less than desirable, like blood or other bodily secretions, or industrial glues, before being compressed into dense, thick bricks of tea. These bricks tend to be displayed hung on the walls of homes in the west as a piece of decor, sometimes framed due to their ornate designs. The aforementioned Hubei heicha is a modified, smaller, thinner version of this; think dense crackers instead of building-material like bricks.
Guangxi
Guangxi province is known for Liu bao. Liu bao is one of the earliest known produced teas, dating back to the Tang dynasty (618-907CE). This tea serves as a great example of why heicha is such a fascinating tea to me- it acts as a link to the past, as so few of today’s modern productions of tea are similar to the teas of lore written down by Lu Yu. Even the name of liu bao bridges history, with “liu bao” meaning “six forts,” referencing the six forts that were once present in and around Liubao Village in Guangxi. There is a wet piling process but it is in much smaller batches and generally over betelwood boards, imparting a distinctive flavor to liu bao. This wet piled leaf was then pressed into baskets and aged; the woven baskets allow for some airflow, controlling moisture levels and preventing mold growth in a hot, humid environment. Now, interestingly enough, liu bao used to be primarily a homemade tea- meaning that villagers would fry the tea leaves in their own woks, drying them in bundles over their fires (which used primarily pine wood), imparting a nice smokiness to the maocha. This method of production is very rare now but you can still find liu bao that has been produced in this traditional manner.
The methods for producing liu bao actually influenced the production of shou puerh, and the technique was studied. This eventually resulted in the wodui process used in shou puerh pioneered by DaYi (Menghai Tea Factory) and Kunming Tea Factory in 1973. The “improved” process made its way back to Guangxi, influencing modern liu bao. Modern liu bao now mostly utilizes this form of wodui with two distinctive styles of liu bao emerging in the world after the puerh bubble: traditional, or farmers’ style liu bao with its woodier betelnut and camphor notes and stronger mineral flavor, and modern liu bao, which is almost more akin to a humid stored shou puerh.
Sichuan
In Sichuan, we see heicha historically categorized as “border teas”- Nan Lu Bian Cha 南路边茶 “South Border Tea” and Xi Lu Bian Cha 西路边茶 “West Border Tea”, as well as Kangzhuan (kang brick, “peaceful brick”). Nowadays, the two border teas are instead known as “Tibetan Tea” or “zang cha,” sometimes “ya’an cha” which has really only seen an increase in interest within the past 20 years, gaining popularity in China at around 2006. This type of tea is also ancient, having been around for at least 1,000 years. Sichuan likes to claim that “Zang cha is the father of heicha” due to its age and production methods. Zang cha is made with all sorts of grades of tea leaves, both young and old, autumn and spring harvest, etc.; no longer is it made exclusively from the lowest quality of tea or a larger amount of sprigs in their teas.
Anhui
Anhui province produces liu an. Liu An is a unique tea in the sense that it’s ancient, going back to the Tang Dynasty and being popular during the Ming and Qing dynasties, though it almost entirely disappeared by the 1940s. Changing drinking habits, marketability, and a shift in tea production during this time period meant that liu an was practically nonexistent (as in, no new batches, really) up until its revival in the 1980s. Liu An is similar to liu bao in packaging, as the leaves are packed and pressed into a bamboo basket of sorts, though they are vastly different teas. Liu an, when aged, rivals the most expensive puerhs- true antique liu an from the period before revival is incredibly rare and desired and oft faked. Modern liu an is…unique and nothing like historic liu an. After the extinction of traditional liu an, the industry saw a surge of counterfeit liu an produced around Macao, which aimed to imiatate the flavors of real liu an. We also see the emergence of a second Liu an, drank primarily in Hong Kong: Liu-an Stems (六安骨). Liu An stems are exclusively the stems picked out during sorting oolong.
Liu'an has two production techniques. Both start with kill-green, like green tea or pu'er. For the first method (more like sheng pu'er), the tea is put into bamboo leaves and then baskets, and roasted in the basket to dry them. For the second method, the tea leaves are withered in the sun, kill-greened, and then rested for about half a year to dry out. Then, water is added, and the tea is wrapped / packed in the bamboo leaves and basket. The tea "ferments" like this, and then the baskets are dried.
Tibetan Autonomous Region
The final region we will cover is Tibet. Even within China, Tibetan heicha is much less known than something like puerh and even moreso in the western market. Actually, I personally have only noticed Tibetan tea for sale in the US within the past 5 years, and generally it’s a loose heimaocha form of heicha. Tibet is more of a consumer of heicha than a producer, and the vast majority of the heicha drank in Tibet is actually manufactured in Sichuan (the border teas), though I have been able to find a few unique types of heicha produced in Tibet. This one specifically is a smaller version of kangzhuan and is produced in Lhasa. There are also tea farms in Tibet, specifically the YiGong Tea Farm in Linzhi, the highest altitude tea farm in China. It is entirely possible there are more types of heicha within Tibet, though they are likely small regional teas that don’t really become commercial and stay within their locales. For example, these small bricks are basically smaller versions of the larger ya’an cha, and tend to stay solely within Tibet.
Cultural Importance
Heicha was a key part of economic life in China and remains a key player in the national industry today; for example, in AnHua alone, heicha is estimated to make up a market value of $105 Million in 2023 and, due to its increasing popularity, it is expected to reach 140.75 Million by the end of 2030 with a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of between 5 and 10%. In many instances, aside from being a trade good, heicha was used as a form of currency; in fact, in Siberia, we see heicha bricks being used as currency up until World War II. That might seem strange, though it makes perfect sense: while being something tangible to represent a physical transaction, heicha bricks could also be cut into smaller sections for smaller transactions, brewed into tea or as a medicinal remedy, or even eaten in times of need. In Tibet, some bricks were known as “brgyad pa” and were worth 8 Tibetan tangkas, or silver coins weighing about 5.4g. This shows just how important heicha was for economic and trade purposes. Now, along with that, we see immense cultural exchange; with trade comes the spread of cultural ideas, customs, and practices. We see Heicha becoming integrated into Tibetan culture, influencing local customs and practices, such as the preparation and consumption of butter tea, a significant facet of social and daily life in Tibet, where the drink is offered as a show of hospitality and respect, reinforcing social bonds among the community internally and externally.
Heicha is, for many in China, a source of valuable nutrients and it remains a sort-of health drink within Mainland China. Tibetans and other steppe-culture populations drink heicha in butter tea as the heicha contains vitamins, minerals, proteins, amino acids, saccharides and so on, making heicha an important source for absorbing mineral substances and vitamins for the northwestern inhabitants who mainly live on beef, mutton and dairy and lack in taking in enough vegetables and fruit. When mixed with something high in fat, like yak butter, butter tea becomes incredibly calorically dense and a great way to provide energy, crucial for sustaining people in the high-altitude, cold climate of Tibet. Within traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), we see heicha being used to remove excess heat and dampness, as heicha can be considered both a cooling and warming tea depending on the level of fermentation. We also see heicha used to aid digestion in the Northern parts of China and the surrounding countries, as heicha is seen as a way to cut the fat from a meat-heavy diet. It is used to warm up the body in colder climates and to cultivate a stronger gut microbiome- so it’s always been a relatively important tea.
Before we get into the wrap-up, there’s one more thing I’d like to cover: heicha is not an expensive tea category, though in recent years due to rampant forgery and scams, heicha has increased in cost. It has become one of the most counterfeited and scammed teas in China, with a massive pyramid scheme revolving around Anhua heicha being busted in 2021. Essentially, a heicha producer had been marketing their heicha as a “cure-all” for any ailments, specifically towards older individuals, charging them 28,000RMB (just under 4,000USD) for a single brick of heicha. They would do the same to other vulnerable groups like cancer patients, charging anywhere from 6,000RMB to 15,000RMB (850.00-2100.00) for the same tea. The reason I mention this is that a lot of the heicha I’ve seen offered to the west has tended to follow similar marketing trends, focusing on branding it as either a health drink or selling it as something to cure an ailment- usually, most common, I’ve seen diabetes as the one being targeted, with claims of reducing blood sugar and increasing insulin production running rampant. As a word of warning, just be careful with what you drink and make sure you pay attention to your teas.
So, to wrap up, what’ve we learned today? Well, heicha is an ancient and incredibly diverse category of tea that is prevalent throughout rural China. We see many different types for each region, though the key unifier with each is the processing in which they are made; that wodui and cross-cultural exchange of new processes among the provinces, like in Guangxi and Yunnan allow us to see just how much of a melting pot heicha culture can be. Additionally, the benefits of heicha, both culturally and physically, are long lasting and powerful enough to bridge centuries. Heicha connects us to the ancient past, maintaining thousands of years of tradition in a relatively unchanged link; it also serves as a vector for cultural exchange. As heicha grows in popularity in the West, it is amazing to see just how many people enjoy this funky, “fermented” tea once they’ve given it a shot. When we share a cup of tea, heicha or otherwise, we create a bridge spanning culture, race, class, gender, religion, etc., where we find that we are all connected; as the saying goes, tea connects us to ourselves. Thank you for your time.
Questions and Answers Term Clarification: At roughly 35:30, I mention a term that I had been discussing earlier with a Taiwanese oolong vendor- the correct term is not "Huāxiāng," (花香) but rather "Fāxiào" (发酵) as I had mentioned earlier.