Six Treasures - Liu Bao · 2018 Aged Dark Tea · 150g Bag

Wuzhou, Guangxi. Named for Liubao town, where the tea has been made since the Qing dynasty and shipped out along what's now called the Tea Boat Road (茶船古道), down the Xijiang river to Guangzhou, then by sea to Malaysia and Singapore. Chinese tin miners in Malaya drank it daily in the heat, and Southeast Asia is still where the deepest old Liu Bao stocks sit today. This is a tea with a diaspora.

What makes it:

Post-fermented, piled, dampened, and left to transform under controlled microbial action, then aged for years in wooden warehouses or Wuzhou's old cave stores. The Chinese standard for good Liu Bao is four characters: 红、浓、陈、醇 — red, thick, aged, mellow. And the signature aroma has a name of its own: 槟榔香, betel-nut fragrance, a cool woody-sweet note that only develops with real age. Two decades is where it arrives.

Taste:

Deep red-brown, nearly black at the edge, completely clear. Aged wood and camphor, dried longan, dark honey, damp earth after rain, and that cool betel-nut note running underneath. Thick and syrupy, absolutely no bitterness or edge, warming through the chest. Comforting in the way only properly aged dark tea is.

Brewing:

Rinse twice. Aged dark tea wants waking up — two quick boiling-water rinses, discard both.

Gongfu: 6g per 110ml gaiwan or clay pot, full rolling boil. Flash / 8s / 10s / 15s, extending. 15+ infusions.

Thermos: 2g, boiling water, sealed for a few hours. Traditional working-day method.

Clay over porcelain if you have it, Liu Bao rounds out beautifully in unglazed clay.

Specs: 60g tin · 2005 · Wuzhou, Guangxi · Post-fermented dark tea (黑茶) · Store sealed, dark, dry, away from odours. Ages indefinitely.