2018 Qian Liang Cha - Anhua Dark Tea

This Qian Liang Cha was made in 2018 from the mature tea leaves of medium-leaf tea bush varietals, the tea garden are located on the remote location of Ga Ma Mountain - the same tea garden as our Black Brick Anhua Dark Tea.  

Qian Liang Cha (aka. 1000 Liang Tea), Liang is an old Chinese unit of weight, which converting to modern day's weight is around 36.25 kilograms.  The tea leaves were tightly compressed into a pre-made long cylinder bamboo basket with indicalamus leaves and reed leaves as the lining of the tea inside, with a length of 166.5cm and a circumference of 56cm. The whole column was aged since 2018, then cut into slices in 2022 and re-packaged into white wrapper 780 - 800 grams cake.  We will sell the tea only in 100g bag which is broken from the cake. 

Qian Liang Tea has gone through a laborious process that involves many steps and days to finish the production, this is a simple list of steps of the production:

Plucking (matured leaves with a top 4-6 leaves & a stem) –Kill Green – Rolling – Wo Dui (a fermentation process which take about 24 hours) – Rolling again – Drying over a purposely built "seven-star-stove" – Mao Cha (unsorted dried tea leaves) - sorting - steamed to make dried leaves soft - fill into a pre-made long cylinder bamboo basket - compressing and tighten each section with thick bamboo stripling - the firmly wrapped Qian Liang "logs" are dried in the sun for 49 days in the sun - then finally stored in an indoor warehouse for further maturing (they can be aged for decades or even centuries without modelling, only improving in taste, aroma and complexity with each passing year.

Dark Tea in Anhua is made of matures leaves, which are essentially the leaves left on the tree to grow. The qualities of any tea are as much in the terroir, the soil, climate and type fo tree as the processing. Just like our Black Brick Dark Tea, this Qian Liang Cha is made from the traditional local bushes, which are medium-leaf varietals (something between small-leaf bush ( C. sinensis var. sinensis) and the large-leaf varieties of Yunnan (C. s. var. assamica)for making Puer Teas.The tea garden is located in a natural forest environment with minimum management on Gao Ma Mountain. Gao Ma Mountain is one of the most famous areas in Anhua to produce Dark Tea.  The climate is warm in winter and cool in summer, surrounded by clouds and mist, is especially suitable for the growth of tea.  The slate weathered and rotten rock soils are widely distributed in the area and the rich beneficial microbial mineral elements in this mountain have made the unique characters of tea. This effects the chemistry of the tea as well as subtler, energetic properties. You would notice that the tea has a very balance flavour with light earth and wood characters.

This brick has been aged since 2018, but you will still notice a very light aroma of smokiness, that is because of the processing which is one of the oldest methods of dark teas by drying the fermented tea leaves over a specially build stove called "seven-star stove" which contains seven holes inside the stove allowing the heat to travel evenly. Pine woods were used to fire in the stove to give the tea's unique character of gently smokiness and pine wood.  

How to brew

Water temperate: 100°C 
Leaf to water ratio & Brewing time: 1 piece (6g) for 250ml; 1st brew for 3 mins or until leaves are loosing up;  2nd - 4th brew for about 40 seconds to 1 min.  5th brew for 1 min or longer. 

Recommended Water: please use natural mineral water with PH7 and the dry residue under 150°C
Tips: adjust the leaf to water ratio if you prefer to shorten the infusion time or for lighter and stronger taste.