2018 Sun Fu Heicha

2018 Sun Fu – We’ve mentioned here and there that white2tea has been slowly assembling a section of multi-province all-star heicha (also called dark tea) and this Anhua heicha from Hunan province is one of my favorites of the lineup. It’s an affordable 2018 brick of material that I also commissioned for 2021. If I’m being honest, I loathed Anhua heicha for years. From my (difficult to please) view, 99% of what gets made in this genre is mass produced dreck. Even the small factories I saw on my last visit were churning out hundreds and thousands of metric tons of ill cared for crap. It wasn’t until I met someone producing from a smaller, unaffiliated plot in their village that I realized I didn’t hate the genre; I hated the industrialized version of the genre. That being said, don’t let my curmudgeonly view skew your experience, if you like it, try some other Anhua teas. If this is your first outing with Fu bricks, you may scream “What the hell this is covered in mold!” and you’ll be right. Fu bricks are intentionally made to have these golden flowers (also called jin hua) and they are prized for medicinal value in China. While I won’t get into what, if any medicinal value they have—the tea is delicious and comforting to drink. To what extent the microbiome in my gut is demanding I drink this tea and preach about it to you is a mystery for another day. (I’ve also seen whispers that people with gluten intolerance find these teas to be bad for their gut, but other people have told me that’s not true. Just mentioning this here in case you are gluten sensitive to be aware, lest we cause anybody undue stress on their digestive tract)