Anhua Hei Cha安化黑茶

Anhua Hei Cha is a hunan-dark pu-erh & dark tea from Anhua, Hunan, China. Brew it at 100°C with 6g of leaf per 100ml of water; expect up to 9 short infusions in a small gaiwan or teapot. A quick rinse is recommended.

Tasting notes

This is the broad-category Anhua brick — hei zhuan, the workhorse of Hunan dark tea. No golden flowers, no tip-grade finesse, no basket aging. Just a dense rectangular brick of pile-fermented Hunan leaf, priced to move, built to outlast everything in your tea cupboard. Knock a chunk off and the dry smell is straightforward: damp forest floor, old cedar, a faint sweet-hay edge. In the cup it runs a clean amber-brown, never muddy. First two or three steeps can show a little astringency if the brick is young — that's normal Anhua, and it fades fast. What takes over is a steady dried-plum sweetness with a woodsy backbone, no smoke to speak of, no medicinal funk. Five years in clean storage and camphor notes start to appear on the finish. It's the tea you boil in a kettle on a slow afternoon and top up for hours. Not a tea to study. A tea to live with.

Flavor profile

Earthy and smooth with a clean, woody character. Fresh Anhua hei cha carries a mild astringency that transforms into lingering sweetness across infusions. Aged examples develop dried plum and camphor notes. Sturdy and economical — retains full flavor after 8+ brews.

Terroir

Mountainous (200-1000m), fog-heavy, mineral-rich slate and sandstone soil

Brewing

Rinse: Rinse 10 seconds to wake compressed leaves and wash off storage dust.

1. Quick rinse — pour off immediately.
2. Steep 1: 15 seconds
3. Steep 2: 20 seconds
4. Steep 3: 25 seconds
5. Steep 4: 30 seconds
6. Steep 5: 40 seconds
7. Steep 6: 50 seconds
8. Steep 7: 60 seconds
9. Steep 8: 80 seconds
10. Steep 9: 120 seconds

Use boiling water and teaware with good heat retention — Yixing clay or ceramic. Can also be boiled for a thick, concentrated brew.

Aroma & taste

Processing

• kill-green
• rolled
• pile-fermented
• dried
• compressed into bricks

Sources

• https://yunnansourcing.com/pages/understanding-anhua-tian-jian-dark-tea
• https://yunnansourcing.com/collections/hei-cha
• https://white2tea.com/products/2021-anhua-tianjian
• https://meileaf.com/article/basic-brewing-guide/