Monday, March 03, 2008

Hidden Treasure

One thing about having a tea shop is you will attract endless option of tea! Yesterday was one of those days.

A lady came in with a chunk of brick, seeking for identity of this little black rock solid like tea, which her nephew obtained from an Indian man at a Dakota Indian summer fair about 2 years ago. The little paper bag says "China Black Tea Brick". She did not know what to do with it, how to break it off, how to brew.

At my bar counter was a couple that frequent my shop, we were having a Ban Zhang Pu run. Like a good host that I am, I share any strange teas to any one. :P

The 4 of us were anxious to try this mysterious tea. I treat any tea the same at the beginning, with slight variation by type. So as the label says black tea, I took a small chunk out with quite a bit of elbow grease. This brick is rock solid, nothing like a hard compressed Pu-erh. It's at least 10 times more compressed, even more so than iron cakes. It was all dust fanning pieces within the cake. They were so compact that I left the small nuggets as is, placed in a Cha Hai, pour hot boiling water over it. The first steep took about a good 2 to 3 minutes. The color came out beautiful, crystal clear with a sheen of oily shine on the surface. The taste was awww! Very smooth, nourishing, sweet red dates flavor. The sensation while the tea slipping down the throat was like a spa treatment. The second infusion took even longer, about 5 minutes, the red dates flavor was even more pronounced, the sweetness was so obvious that it seems like sugar was added which was not the case at all. We had 4 to 5 infusions of it. Each one of them were delicious. I couldn't get many steeping out of it, but the taste is really special!

First infusion, large nuggets are still stuck together.


6 or 7th infusion.

At first, it seems to be about 7 yrs old, but by the 3rd round, I know this tea is gotta be very old, 30 upwards. Then I looked closely to the design, it tells me this must be an export tea. My first guess is Russia or Europe. Not likely to be Arab or Tibet. Comparing the design of the brick, the type of tea leaves to modern day Black (true China Black, not Red) tea such as Hu Nan Fu Zuan Hei Cha, this tea definitely stamped with a historic chronicle time stamp. Looking back at the export history of China Black tea bricks, Russia and China's relationship came to a haul in the 70's. However, China did not produce anything with this type of design mode in the 70's. I am hoping this is before the 50's. But I can't be sure. The flavor does give me a before 50's feel.

This brick reminds me a lot of historical facts of China tea culture, most of them I have only heard of, but didn't make sense when applied to modern loose leaves. It's now making sense to why certain technique or tools were used then, but no longer part of modern day tea drinking.

One of them is the grinding tool existed in Tang dynasty. Tea were made as bricks then, I guess some what similar to this one here, rock solid hard. Tea was grounded into powders (I guess not fine powder like Matcha), then roasted over fire and then boiled in water. Given that this brick is extremely compact, the grinder might work better than my ice pick (for pu), I skipped the roasting step this time, and steeped instead of boiled which I guess why it took minutes to steep the flavor out even though it's fanning and dust, large clumps took 4 steepings to open, with a spoon to force open.

I am inviting the LATA gang for a tasting. Jason's tongue I will have to borrow for the occasion! :P We should roast it a bit to see the difference as well.

A tea fanatic and good friend of mine came for tea with 2 other lady friends later of the day, I made this brick tea again, and much more. Including the Ban Zhang run earlier in the morning, I must had over 15 teas in one day. Well, drunk as before and up till 4. Ban Zhang pu kicked my behind each and every time.

Update:
After some digging on the internet, I found out this tea is manufactured by Zhao Li Qiao tea factory of Hu Bei province. The factory is located in the town named Zhao Li Qiao (bridge). Zhao and Li are last names. They produce 3 types of tea bricks: Hei (black), Qing (green/blue) and Mi (rice) bricks. The one I have is a Mi (rice) brick, containing black tea fanning, stems and such. Basically the left overs. Before the communist party took over China (1945), Zhao Li Qiao tea factory was a private company producing tea for tea merchants exporting such bricks to the northern, west and northwestern neighboring countries, such as Russia, Mongolia, Tibet, west ward all the way to Europe. These are also called Bian Xiao Cha (Out side the border tea). This type of brick has been a stable diet for the Tibetans and Mongolians, meat eating nomadic tribes, served as digestive aid, vitamin and mineral supplements. Between 1950s and 1970s, the company changed its name to Zhao Li Qiao China Tea Company. Then it's named Zhao Li Qiao Hu Bei Province Tea Company. Today, the company produces Mi (rice) brick with 2 design molds:

Front of a Train by ZLQ Hu Bei Province Tea Company, aim for internal sale, meaning within China.

The Memorial Arch by ZLQ China Tea Company, aim for external sale, to foreign countries.

The brick I have on hand belong to the second type by design. Although the company name exited only between 1950 and 1970s (supposedly), however it's still used today (I don't know since when it was reused). It's hard to say how old my brick is. The taste has a certain old pu (nicely aged decomposed) quality to it, if it was old,I might have a nice little chunk of history here.

There are only 2 known 100+ years old Mi Bricks exist today, except the undiscovered ones. Each are worth $1+ million RMB, weight over 1kg each, one of them is at Hu Bei Museum. both have the memorial arch design, company titles are different than ZLQ __ Tea Company. The arch design has a European flavor to it, and a traditional design for Bian Xiao Cha (out side of the border tea). Back in the days, they were packed for individual trade companies, most of them owned by the Jun Merchants. A group of extremely successful merchants trading in Mongolia, Russia and Tibet.

17 comments:

EAnglin said...

have seen tea like this at many historic re-enactment events.
This is one vendor who sells a similar product.
http://www.smoke-fire.com/foods-from-the-past-1.asp
And another vendor with different style brick here;
http://jas-townsend.com/index.php?cPath=24&osCsid=ed8cc9b6f53bf513a645512340d60ba3

MarshalN said...

Hi Imen,

Actually, this is a Zhaoliqiao Mi Zhuan, you can match the pattern on your sample to the picture below

http://blog.artron.net/attachments/Mon_0512/1_17_44dcbe1380a666a.jpg

Quite common in China, you can find them everywhere. There are old ones, and new ones. They're sometimes for export, but not necessarily. They're basically VERY broken black tea.

Imen said...

eanglin,

Thanks very much for the info. I looked into it and will update blog entry.

Marshaln,

Have you tried any? What does the recent year brick taste like? I am curious in how old is mine.

MarshalN said...

They are suitably low grade, not something I'd drink if I had a choice.

They were never very good tea -- the good stuff don't get this sort of treatment.

Imen said...

Marshaln,

That was my initial assumption when I saw this brick. Now I am pretty confident it's been age significantly to have such nice smooth flavor. If you are some where near LA this Sunday, we are having a tasting of this little black gold nugget, you are welcome to join us.

Bearsbearsbears said...

they sold an identical looking at Cost Plus World Market...maybe it's still there?

Daniel said...

A friend of mine brought over a brick that looks exactly like yours last night. We broke off a piece and steeped it in a yixing-exterior gaiwan. The leaf basically disintegrated in the gaiwan, looking very chopped, as in your pictures. Despite whatever quality (or lack of) that this tea has, it tasted very good. I've never had anything like it. Smooth. A little qi came immediately and then was gone as fast as it came. Interesting, really. Beautiful design on the brick too!

Imen said...

Jason,

I am tempted to get one to see the difference.

Daniel,

Do you happen to know the age of your friend's brick?

I had similar experience with mine. Not much Qi but extremely smooth.

Daniel said...

To tell you the truth, I don't know how old the brick is. It's been handed down from person to person; passed around and shared. All I really know about it is that it's from China. Its a mystery tea to me.

Marina's Arena said...

Hi, i dont know if anyone can help identify this hunan tea brick for me or tell me about it ie age flavour value etc, it weighs well over 1 kilo http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff63/marinagreen/300px-BlackTeaBrick.jpg

Ben Clifford said...

I got a tea brick like this - but its so so hard to break up. What do people do exactly to make this into a cup of tea?

Imen said...

ice pick works best to pry small chunks.

reeee said...

Hi. I have recently purchased a black tea brick and I was going to brew it up to drink, but after researching it abit- Im now not so sure I should, because I think it may be very rare.
My knowledge of this type of tea is very limited and so if anyone can help me find out any info on this- it would be great thanx.
The brick has been made by Zhao Li Qiao tea factory and it says this on the front.
The reason I think it's rare is because I have a third design (not the bridge or train versions) The picture stamped on the front Is a peacock. It also has the word TWININGS. Which would not necessarily mean it is modern.
It comes with a box too which has Zhao Li Qiao tea factory on the front and the normal bridge picture on the front. I have emailed the twinings tea company but they have said they can not help. Hope someone reading this can help me work out where/when it has come from???

Charles T. Draper said...

I just purchased one. The liquor is sublime....

Unknown said...

I have the whole brick, your nugget is 1/16th of the brick. I just wonder how rare these are, google showed me currencymuseum.ca (Ottawa) and moneymuseum.com (Zurich) have them in their collection. They date theirs at mid 20th century and 1900. According to indiatea.co.in (16 september 2013) a ZhaoLiQiao Tea Factory brick was sold at a Hubei auction for record $1250,-. Same factory, dated Qing dynasty, that's 1644-1912= now there's a wide margin! AFAIK you've been sipping history, but I think I'm saving mine for it's currency use:)! I have no proof but reason to believe it's at least 65 yrs old,when my country left Indonesia.
Ciao, Bas from the Netherlands.

Unknown said...

For many examples, including the Twinings design and the auction record;
that one brick sold for $1.250.000,-, not $1250,-, which I thought was already interesting enough to mention.
Soooo, anyone carbon dating tea bricks by any chance:) ?

Unknown said...

http://www.pinterest.com/bricktea/brick-tea-black-tea-hong-cha/