Bai Sha Xi production made from 2007 Spring tea leaves. Pressed into a huge 36 kilogram column called "Qian Liang Cha" (aka 1000 catty tea) and then aged for 11 years before we purchased a whole column and then cut into slices and re-packaged into white wrapper 680-780 grams cake. (If you want to get whole "cake" choose the 800 grams option and you'll get a whole cake + some pieces to get the overall weight up to 800 grams. (example: you might get a 710 gram "cake" and a few chunks totaling 90 grams). We are also offering small cubes of this tea as for sampling. They are roughly 10 grams each but can vary by weight and size, and as such are sold by weight. Qian Liang tea is compressed in a long column (typically 36kg) through a laborious process that involves steaming the leaves and funneling them into a three layered cylinder of woven bamboo. Then a team of 5 to 8 people will simultaneously compress the tea using leverage and then tighten each section with thick bamboo stripling. Once firmly compressed the Qian Liang "logs" are dried in the sun and then finally cured for months in an indoor warehouse. In this form they can be aged for decades or even centuries without molding, only improving in taste, aroma and complexity with each passing year! You can watch this video here to see just how amazing Qian Liang processing really is! Another video shows how the Qian Liang log is opened and prepped for the cutting stage when it's moved to the consumption stage. The taste is spicy, sweet, thick, with hints of brewer's yeast and mushrooms. Really kind of difficult to describe, so we would encourage you to purchase the lesser amount first to see if you like it. Bai Sha Xi Tea Factory in Anhua County of Hunan is the earliest producer of "Dark Tea" (hei cha) in Hunan and the first to produce the Golden Flower bricks in China. Bai Sha Xi was established in 1940 to product Hei Cha bricks, then in 1953 they produced the first Fu Brick with Golden Flowers. Spring 2007 harvest tea leaves, stored as a 36.25 kilogram column in An Hua County of Hunan until October 2018 when it was cut up into "cakes" and moved to Kunming. ALLERGEN ALERT!!! ** Because there is a possibility the golden flowers were inoculated using wheat flour we cannot guarantee this tea is safe for those with Celiac Disease or those that have severe gluten induced allergies **
