Hei Cha vs Puerh?
Can someone with 1st-hand experience give me a good taste comparison between the 2 broad types of tea please. Thanks!
That’s a bit like asking for a taste comparison between sparkling white wine and Champagne. It’s kind of the wrong question.
Hei cha refers to any post-fermented tea, which would include pu’erh (certainly shu and probably aged sheng). Normally when people (at least in the west) use the term they use it in the sense of “non-pu’erh post-fermented tea” which is how I assume you are using it, but I don’t think there is an answer to that question which is very useful.
As for my experience the hei cha that I have tasted have been different than typical pu’erh, but then again there is a huge variety in pu’erh as well.
What exactly are you after here? What are you trying to figure out?
The best answer I can give you is that if you like shu and/or aged sheng then there are probably hei cha out there that you will enjoy as well.
My main experience with Hei Cha is that I don’t like it as much as puerh in general. Of course there is always that one really good Liu Bao that makes me think twice about this. I think some of the Hei Cha are other provinces attempt at puerh and they don’t do it as well in general.
Ok, I will try to be more specific – websites like YS list Hei Cha separately to Puerh, and do not list Puerh as a type of Hei Cha (sorry for my ignorance!). It looks interesting, especially the ones that are made into cakes. Naturally, before I try some, I wanted to know what I could expect – while raw Puerh does vary, it can still be broadly described in a way that would distinguish it as a group of teas from, say, Oolongs or PG Tips (I seem to have to do this in the office almost every day!). So, is it GENERALLY, for example, less earthy, longer on the palate, less complex, sweeter, and so on. Also, do people like it as much (thanks for you opinions so far) or is it generally a poor substitute? Finally, knowing I am a raw Puerh lover, are there particular ones that people would recommend?
I think the reason for the separation is just marketing. People are starting to be familiar with puerh, so they look for puerh in a web site. Forcing them to look for hei cha would probably lead to lost sales. Some vendors will list hei cha under the ripe puerh heading, similar to some US companies calling their sparkling wine champagne, even though it never came within 3,000 miles of that area.
I am mostly a raw puerh drinker, finding 90% of the ripe puerh I’ve tried to taste unpleasant. As a result, I haven’t been excited by the hei cha I’ve tried, which to me is much closer to ripe than raw. If there is a small difference it would be that hei cha can be closer in style to sheng, but there is such a wide variety in all three types that I can’t really make a definitive statement (plus I’ve only had about a dozen or so hei cha). If you are not a big shou drinker, you may not like hei cha either; I’d start small.
Within hei cha there are quite a few different styles; tian jain, fu brick, liu bao that all have different characteristics.
Tian jian would be the one I recommend most for a raw puerh drinker; most of the ones I’ve had have been kind of like a combination of aged sheng and roasted oolong.
I haven’t reordered any of the Liu Bao I’ve tried but Tian Jian sounds interesting.
Thank you for the description.
I’ve sampled just a few hei cha, and they all are certainly different – it would be like lumping all oolongs together…
Tian Jian is like a more spicy, smokey version of a black tea. Liu bao is closest to ripe pu’erh – dark, rich, earthy. Fu is savory and yeasty and unlike any other tea.
Pu’erh, of course, is a totally different beast, with lots of flavor possibilities depending on region, age, storage, etc.
Here are a few hei cha tasting notes if you’re interested. Enjoy your fermented tea journey!
tian jian – https://steepster.com/apefuzz/posts/359645, https://steepster.com/apefuzz/posts/338099
liu bao – https://steepster.com/apefuzz/posts/364905
fu zhuan – https://steepster.com/apefuzz/posts/365257
Thanks for the details and the recommendations – I will look into a few samples. I do quite like ripe Puerh though I’m not sure I’ve found much variation in the ones I’ve tried, unlike raw
Heicha, refers to Dark tea in English. Normally, people won’t use good leaves to make Heicha. It usually has one milk like heavy taste.
Compares with Heicha，Pu’erh usually has more variety of flavors, and higher quality.
Heicha is cheap, you can buy 500g low quality Heicha with only 20 yuan in China. But Pu’erh might be very expensive. Some primacy quality Pu’erh can sell to hundreds dollars with only 10oz.
Heicha and Pu’erh are usually formed in bricks, you need to break them, while you want to drink. But, in case for easy transportation, our Pu’erh is breaked. The link is there: https://teadaw.com/products/pu-erh-tea-black-sherry
The var. sinensis vs var. assamica base material means they are completely different. Even liu bao or liu an vary dramatically based on age and storage, and fu cha is something else entirely. Like with pu, the processing, initial aging (with liu bao and often liu an) and then storage can lead to vastly different results. I’ve noticed that the heicha industry is becoming a lot like the pu industry because of demand and even processing is changing to produce a product that is more like modern pu erh than is traditional. This is kind of sad, but some of the new stuff can be really nice to drink!
I drink all sorts of hei cha, and have for years. IMO they definitely have appeal of their own and can be very enjoyable.
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