Heizhuan

Classification and Origin

Category: one of the "three bricks" (三砖) of Anhua heicha.

mid-range (中档) — a solid, everyday product.

Origin: Anhua County (安化), Hunan Province.

Type: dark tea (heicha, 黑茶), tightly compressed brick.

History and Culture

1939, when the Baishaxi (白沙溪) factory produced the first black brick.

Botany and Raw Material

black maofeng (黑毛茶) — a semi-finished product that has undergone primary processing with wet piling.

second and third grade (二-三级黑毛茶) — not the most tender apical flushes, but a more mature, robust leaf.

Cultivar: no specific cultivar is fixed; local Anhua material, characteristic of the entire heicha production region, is used.

Terroir

Anhua County (安化), Hunan Province — the historical center of dark tea production.

Production

steam pressing (蒸压, zhēngyā) — prepared black maofeng is selected by grade, steamed for softening and plasticity, and then tightly compressed into a brick form.

a very dense, tight tile (紧实) with neat geometry.

the finished brick is dried at a moderate temperature — not exceeding 65 °C (干燥 ≤65℃). The gentle thermal regime fixes the shape and stabilizes moisture content without "scorching" the tea, preserving its potential for further maturation.

grade of the original maofeng (二-三级), pressing density, drying regime, and characteristics of the finished infusion; specific numerical indices depend on the current edition of national and industry standards for dark teas.

Organoleptic Profile

"aged aroma" of maturation (陈香, chénxiāng).

Taste: clean, well-rounded fullness (醇正, chúnzhèng); the infusion is dense, smooth, with a dark body.

Comparison

heizhuan lacks "golden flowers" — when the brick is broken, no golden-yellow specks of Eurotium cristatum are visible, and no fungal aroma is detected; this is a pure "aged aroma" without a fungal note.

heizhuan is smooth, without ornamentation, whereas huazhuan bears a decorative pattern along the four edges of the tile.

heizhuan is a pressed brick, not loose tea in a woven basket; it generally lacks the pronounced pine-smoke note characteristic of tiānjiān and gòngjiān, which undergo firing over pine wood.

Price and Authenticity

heizhuan is positioned as a mid-price-range tea (中档) — a reliable, everyday product.

genuine heizhuan is recognized by its very tight, dense compression (紧实) and the neat geometry of the tile.

it is based on second-to-third-grade black maofeng, which gives a mature, robust infusion body, not the "delicate-floral" lightness of higher grades.