Mongolian Storage Dark Brick

Type: Hei Zhuan - Hubei Dark Tea 黑砖湖北黑茶 Harvest: Spring 2010 Production Region: Chibi, Hubei Storage Region: Ulanqab (ᠤᠯᠠᠭᠠᠨᠴᠠᠪ), Inner Mongolia Producer: Zhaoliqiao Factory / Master Zhang Tasting Notes: Jujubes, Dates, Chinese Herbal Medicine, Cedar. This is one of the most unique dark teas out there: the first run domestically-marketed premium brick tea from Hubei Province, stored since 2012 in the place that most enjoys brick tea: Inner Mongolia. After more than a decade sitting in an extremely dry warehouse in Ulanqab, it has aged in a very peculiar way: slowly and cleanly. There is none of the funk that Hubei-produced dark teas sometimes accumulate after a few damp summers sitting on a Wuhan teahouse shelf. Despite now being 16 years of age, It has also not taken on the more empty and woody profile of some pressed teas at the end of their life cycle. A tightly packed tea to begin with, this dark brick has just gotten a little sweeter and thicker, without the astringent sharpness that often lingers in Hubei dark teas. This is a tea meant to be boiled, offering up a thick, syrupy sweet dark tea that is as clean as it is rich. We would not reccomend using this to make Mongolian-style milk tea due to its more delicate flavor, while the compression of the tea brick makes it a poor candidate for Gongfu or Grandpa Style brewing. Dark Brick (Heizhuan) was a style of production more associated with Anhua, known most for a mild flavor and pleasant sweetness that is welcoming to those new to dark teas. The Zhaoliqiao Factory in Hubei chose this processing style as their first attempt to win over more premium domestic Chinese consumers who were wary of the massive, rough Qingzhuan that the factory usually sold to Mongolia. Master Zhang, who has stored this tea for over a decade, is a Hohot local with a dark tea factory in Anhua, Hunan, and a storage warehouse in Ulanqab. In his own words, he is now the only tea shop left in the provincial capital that still specializes in dark tea, and is certainly the only tea seller in the city who also makes his own dark tea every year. Zhang still has several hundred tea bricks of this batch, left over from the speculative bubble around dark tea in the mid 2010's. Each Order of this tea (chunk or full brick) will receive a free sample of the Black Honeysuckle dark tea bricks that Master Zhang has made from Mongolian wild flowers and Hunanese tea stems. This tea has also been priced to encourage as many people as possible buy the full brick.