How to brew Fu brick and Anhua dark tea
Fu Zhuan (with 'golden flowers'), Hunan hei cha.
Coarse, compressed leaf that wants boiling water and long later steeps. It can also be simmered on the stove.
Starting recipe
| Setting | Western (mug or teapot) | Gongfu (small pot or gaiwan) |
|---|---|---|
| Temperature | 203–212°F (95–100°C) | 203–212°F (95–100°C) |
| Leaf | 1–2 g per 100 ml | 4–7 g per 100 ml |
| Steepdial starts at | 212°F (100°C) · 4 g · 300 ml | 212°F (100°C) · 6 g · 100 ml |
| First steep | 1:30–5:00 | 0:05–0:30 |
| A whole session | 3:00 · 4:00 · 5:00 | 0:10 · 0:15 · 0:20 · 0:30 · 0:45 · 1:00 · 1:30 |
The details
Rinse
Often worth it: a 8-second rinse, poured away, wakes up the leaf.
Drinking window
Suitable for aging. Made for long keeping; how it changes depends on storage, not just time.
Caffeine
Contains caffeine. How much depends on the leaf, the water temperature and the steep time; the style alone is a poor guide.
Iced and cold brew
Cold brew: 1 g per 100 ml of cold water, in the fridge for about 12 hours. Keep it cold and drink it within a day or two. Give pressed leaf a quick hot rinse first. For iced tea now, brew a concentrated hot cup (the same leaf in half the water) and pour it over an equal weight of ice; Steepdial accounts for the ice in the total water.
How Steepdial adjusts
After a session you tap what you'd change: more flavor, less bitter, less drying. Steepdial changes one thing at a time, staying near the ranges above, and remembers what worked for that tea.
Short steeps and pour time
The first gongfu steep is 0:10. If your pot takes several seconds to empty, start pouring a little early, or turn on the pour cue in Steepdial.
More dark / post-fermented
The whole guide →Sheng / raw pu-erh (young)
Raw pu-erh under about 10 years
185–212°F (85–100°C) · 1–2 g per 100 ml→Dark / post-fermentedSheng / raw pu-erh (aged)
Raw pu-erh with years of storage
203–212°F (95–100°C) · 1–2 g per 100 ml→Dark / post-fermentedShou / ripe pu-erh
Ripe pu-erh, cakes, bricks and tuos
203–212°F (95–100°C) · 1–2.5 g per 100 ml→Dark / post-fermentedLiu Bao
Guangxi dark tea, often basket-aged
203–212°F (95–100°C) · 1–2.5 g per 100 ml→Dark / post-fermentedOther dark tea
Tibetan brick, Liu An and other hei cha
203–212°F (95–100°C) · 1–2.5 g per 100 ml→