Bailiang and Shiliang

Classification and Origin

Category: Anhua dark tea (安化黑茶, Ānhuà hēichá), family of "flower rolls" huajuan (花卷, huā juǎn).

Bailiang and Shiliang are the junior, "household" steps of the same technology that produced the "king of teas" Qianliang Cha; they stand on the same axis as Qianliang, differing from it only in size and mass.

described by the formula "三尖三砖一卷" (sān jiān sān zhuān yī juǎn) — "three pointed tips, three bricks, one roll". "One roll" (一卷) is exactly the huajuan line, to which cylinders of all weight calibers belong.

Anhua dark tea is normalized as an independent category of heicha within the system of national standards of the PRC.

Origin: Anhua County, Hunan Province.

Type: dark tea (heicha, 黑茶, hēichá).

Botany and Raw Material

black maocha (黑毛茶, hēi máochá) of the second to third grade (二-三级).

medium-coarse grind, with the presence of more mature leaf and stems — it is precisely this that gives the "rolls" their density, structure, and potential for long-term aging.

more tender grades of maocha go to the "pointed tip" teas of the sanjian series (三尖, sān jiān) — tianjian (天尖, tiān jiān) and gongjian (贡尖, gòng jiān); for the cylinders, volume, strength of the compressed mass, and the ability to mature evenly over decades are more important.

Production

caizhi (踩制, cǎi zhì) — manual tamping and compressing of tea into a dense cylinder. Bailiang and Shiliang are produced by the same method as qianliang, only on a smaller scale.

Price and Authenticity

authentic huajuan is a cylindrical column in a woven bamboo sheath with an inner lining of palm fiber and knotweed leaves; the diameter and length directly correspond to the weight designation.

the numerical part of the name is the weight in old liang: Shiliang is small, Bailiang is larger, qianliang is the standard ~36 kg and ~1.65 m. A discrepancy between the size and the claimed name is a warning sign.

a tamped cylinder is extremely dense; on a break, a tight, layered structure of compressed coarse leaf with stems of the second or third grade is visible.

a mature roll yields a clean chen xiang without moldy mustiness; the infusion is clear, dark amber, with a sweet, long aftertaste.

unlike fuzhuan (茯砖, fú zhuān), the rolls do not carry the "golden flower" (金花, jīn huā) as a mandatory signature, and from heizhuan (黑砖, hēi zhuān) and huazhuan they are distinguished precisely by the cylindrical shape and the "sun and dew" stage in production.