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So I've written about a couple of teas from Yimuyiyang/Qinyang a couple of times on here. The guy behind the brands, Chen Yangwen, produces some pretty great teas to my mind. They're hard to find online (as are Anhua heichas beyond big brand stuff in general), and when they do pop up on certain Taobao stores it's usually with an outrageous price tag. I'm fortunate to have access to some of the teas through a Changsha agent, at very good prices.

I'm planning to pick up some more bricks of the 2021 heizhuan. I thought I'd offer anyone interested the chance to join in, as a group buy. Needless to say there will be no profit involved on my end. The bricks will be shipped to shipforwarder and from there to each recipient. That means that those interested will need to pay the cost of their brick(s) + shipping from China to their location.

About the bricks, they are 980 grams a piece, extremely compressed (you'll definitely need "tea scissors" or something similar), with the typical leaf chop level for these iron tight heizhuans (see the linked gallery below). As with all of Chen Yangwen teas, they're from Muyang. Teas from there have a unique fragrance, which is usually attributed to their growing alongside the aromatic Magnolia officinalis. The sweetness and huigan are what captivates me most about this tea. It is young though, and while definitely drinkable now I think it will be even better a few years down the line when the pine smoke (which is noticable, but not very strong) has had some more time to integrate.

The price should be around USD 50 per brick + shipping (which can be calculated at shipforwarder).

If anyone is interested, feel free to PM me. I'll probably make my order in a week or two.

Gallery here.

extremely compressed

These two words certainly carry more weight than usual O__O . Works for a nice textbook representation of it.

Yes, unfortunately it's becoming the norm in the heizhuan world. The only good thing about it from my point of view, is that I'm able to fit a whole kilo brick into my zip ock mylar bags for long term storage

(Some people, mostly vendors I believe, will tell you that the ultra compression will yield a better result once you've waited 15 years for sufficient pectin breakdown to loosen things up a bit)

Maerskian wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 20, 2022 2:46 pm

extremely compressed

These two words certainly carry more weight than usual O__O . Works for a nice textbook representation of it.

I read this, then saw the picture.. you aren't joking.

Pants404 wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 20, 2022 8:15 pm

Maerskian wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 20, 2022 2:46 pm

extremely compressed

These two words certainly carry more weight than usual O__O . Works for a nice textbook representation of it.

I read this, then saw the picture.. you aren't joking.

Definitely i am not ^__^ . For a moment makes you think of those thick 100% cacao choco bars on non standard XLL sizes looking so shiny and... compact.

Wonder if such brick wouldn't be an ideal candidate for the Dozuki saw approach .

I've used a hacksaw for a shiliang and a regular handsaw for a bailiang.

A dozuki might be a decent fit for a heizhuan like this, but the mentioned tea scissors work really great and save a ton of time and enegy.

Balthazar wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 21, 2022 1:35 pm

I've used a hacksaw for a shiliang and a regular handsaw for a bailiang.

A dozuki might be a decent fit for a heizhuan like this, but the mentioned tea scissors work really great and save a ton of time and enegy.

Missed those posts so thanks for those links.

Not sure if you have a tendency towards big and/or not-average sized formats but i certainly do, that 3Kg log is a feast for my eyesight and makes me remember that 3.1kg shu cake on YunnanCraf i'd certainly love to get.

Maerskian wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 21, 2022 2:04 pm

Not sure if you have a tendency towards big and/or not-average sized formats

Not really, but with Anhua heichas you're not left much of a choice. Luckily there's a shift towards more reasonable brick sizes and better availability of slices of qianliangs. In fact, the heizhuan mentioned in this thread will probably be sold as 200 gram bricks starting this year or next, or so I'm told.

The magnolia connection sounds very interesting. With all that I’ve been reading in the last few years about the World Wide Web, it totally makes sense that plants could pick things up from neighboring plants, especially if they are long established mixed plantings. PM momentarily.

Yep, it's pretty interesting. It sounds like a sales pitch gimmick (and I guess it's also used that way), but there definitely is a very distinct flavor to these Muyang teas. Here's another (Google Translate friendly) article talking about the Magnolia aspect.

I forgot to mention the dimensions of the brick in the original post. They're approximately 24x13x3 cm. When estimating shipping (for a single brick), I usually double weight and dimensions to have a bit of safety buffer and take packaging into account.

The order has been placed, so this thread can be archived.

Those who joined in will be informed about further proceedings through PM, once the tea arrives in Guangzhou. (Expecting slightly slower processing with "labor day golden week" right around the corner.)