Among the six great chromatic families of Chinese tea, dark tea—hei cha—has always been the most itinerant. Compressed into brick...

Among the six major chromatic families of Chinese tea, dark tea (heicha) is the most migratory; it once traveled farther than sil...

When most tea lovers outside China hear “dark tea,” they picture the malty depth of a Yunnan ripe pu-erh. Yet 1,200 km northeast ...

Few beverages can claim to have financed armies, soothed nomad thirst, and evolved a microscopic golden flora that connoisseurs n...

Few beverages can claim to have been both currency and medicine, yet Fu brick tea—one of the most celebrated styles of Chinese da...

Few beverages carry the perfume of desert caravans and imperial granaries as vividly as Fu brick tea. Born in the lake-studded pl...

If green tea is the fresh-faced scholar of Chinese leaf lore, then Fu brick tea (Fú zhuān chá) is the weathered caravan master wh...

Among the six great families of Chinese tea, dark tea—hei cha—remains the most enigmatic to outsiders. Within this shadowed realm...

If you walk into the old tea markets of Xi’an or the caravan depots that once lined the Hexi Corridor, you will still hear the sa...

Few beverages carry the quiet gravitas of Fu brick tea. To the uninitiated it looks like a dusty building block—compressed, eart...