Last Updated on 12/28/2020 by Desmond
In Chinese history, dark tea took an important position. For a long time, dark tea had another more official name Border-selling Tea. Almost all the dark tea production and sales must be under government manager, mainly for exchanging the border regions folk’s horse. And Anhua Dark tea was the best of them.
Anhua dark tea originated in Anhua, Hunan, one of the most famous dark teas, with source leaves are from large-leaf tea trees. The infusion shows amber, tastes mellow, and full of aroma. Anhua dark tea is basically sold in compressed tea style, typically needs long-time aging to increase the flavor.
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Anhua Dark Tea History
Before the dark tea, Anhua was producing steaming green tea and white all the time. According to historical records, the tea-production of Anhua going back to the Tang Dynasty(1400 years ago.) And Anhua dark tea rise in Ming Dynasty(600 years ago.) At that time, the control by the government of tea reached an unprecedented level.
We’ve mentioned the Ancient Tea Horse Road before in the post about Zang Cha(Tibetan tea). In the Tang Dynasty, the tea-horse trading between central Chian and the border regions grew and developed a trade route called Ancient Tea Horse Road. Dark tea was born from green tea, which was fermented by the hot and wet weather in the long journey.
At the most beginning, Hunan took green tea as the main product but not dark tea. Or rather, it was rough tea. Then the rough tea would be sent to other regions for further processing. For example, Jingyang used the Anhua dark rough tea to produce Fuzhuan brick tea, famous for its golden flowers; or processed into Tibetan tea in Yaan, Sichuan.
At that time, a specialized department managed tea production and sale. All the teas were grading into 3 grades.
Gong Tea. The tea masters turned in the highest quality tea for serving the emperor and nobility.
Business Tea. Tea merchants got the government’s qualification and quota, then purchased teas from tea plantations and sold them in folk.
Official Tea. Most of the time, it refers to border-selling tea, mainly for the tea-horse trading to border regions and foreign, unified manager by the government.
Hunan has an outstanding natural environment and deep tea production history. Junshan Silver Needle tea(a yellow tea) from Hunan was always the market darling. The dark rough tea produced there also has full-flavor because of the large-leaf tea tree. One more significant advantage is, due to the mature industrial chain, Anhua tea can get a lower price; it has an excellent cost performance.
Anhua dark tea wasn’t still been as official tea. Even though smuggle tea was a capital offense at that time, face to the great benefits, many tea merchants and bandits still planned to do it. Anhua is near to the Ancient Tea Horse Road. Producing dark tea here and then smuggling teas to the border regions to exchange horses can earn big money. And due to the better taste and lower price of Anhua dark tea, it damaged the official tea business a lot.
Just like many popular industries nowadays, fake and low-quality products came soon in the huge profits and unregulated markets. The Ming government finally defined Anhua dark tea as an official tea, for better containment of them and supervised. When the Zang Tea from Yaan, Sichuan could not satisfy the border folks consumption, Anhua dark tea can take as a supplement.
However, After the