Xián’ān zhuānchá (咸安砖茶) is “Xian’an brick tea”, a pressed dark tea of Xian’an District (咸安区) in Xianning prefecture-level city, in the south of Hubei Province. It is made from the semi-finished lǎoqīngchá (老青茶), which undergoes wet piling, and pressed into small hard bricks. This is the Hubei tradition of “green brick” (青砖茶). According to material published on the portal of the Xianning government, production is more than 400 years old. Since 2015 the name has been protected as an agricultural product geographical indication, and in 2025 the tea was recognized as a geographical indication product.
1. Classification and Origin
- Type: Dark tea (黑茶, hēichá), pressed. The class is set by the protection regulation: after fixation, rolling and sun-drying, the semi-finished tea undergoes wet piling (渥堆, wòduī) — the hallmark of dark tea.
- Name trap: The “青” in the word 青砖茶 (qīngzhuānchá) does not mean green tea: the brick is pressed from the semi-finished 老青茶 (lǎoqīngchá), and the class is set by the technology with piling.
- Category: Hubei “green brick”; a geographical indication product.
- Origin: China, Hubei Province (湖北, Húběi), Xianning prefecture-level city (咸宁, Xiánníng), Xian’an District (咸安, Xián’ān).
- Protection zone: Seven towns and townships of the district — Guihua (桂花镇), Maqiao (马桥镇), Damu (大幕乡), Shuangxiqiao (双溪桥镇), Heshengqiao (贺胜桥镇), Tingsiqiao (汀泗桥镇) and Henggouqiao (横沟桥镇): 63 villages and one state forest farm, 2,000 ha in all.
- Geographic coordinates: 114°06′–114°43′ E and 29°39′–30°02′ N.
2. History and Cultural Significance
- History:
- Prototypes. According to material on Chibi brick tea on the website of the Hubei Provincial Committee of the CPPCC (2023), the prototype of 青砖茶 is the Song plate tea (片茶), which, according to the History of Song (宋史), was steamed and molded; later the merchants of Yangloudong (羊楼洞), for the sake of cheap long-distance transport, began pressing tea into cylinders (帽盒茶).
- 1368. According to the intangible heritage register, the He (何) family moved from Jiangxi (according to the CPPCC material, from Xiushui County, 修水) to a place near Xianning (柏墩) and took up making and selling tea; since then the craft has been passed down through twenty generations; the register names this family as the founder of the Changshengchuan (长盛川) brand. Since 2021 its technique has been on the national intangible heritage list as a branch of the dark tea technique (the application was filed from Yichang, where the technique came from Xianning).
- Ming and Qing. According to material from Xianning Ribao on the city government’s website (2020), Xian’an brick tea “began under the Ming and flourished under the Qing”. The brand by which the sources represent the Xian’an brick is “生甡川” (in the reference book and the geographical indication database — “生川”); its history, according to the same source, begins in 1590, the 18th year of the Wanli era.
- 1911. A gold medal at the Panama International Exposition — the year is as given by the source; there is no other confirmation.
- 1927. The tea was shown as a first-class product at the first Hubei provincial exhibition of domestic goods.
- 2015. By announcement No. 2314 of 5 November 2015, the Ministry of Agriculture registered the agricultural product geographical indication (entry AGI01763). The holder is the Xian’an District Organic Tea Association (咸宁市咸安区有机茶产业协会).
- 2025. Announcement No. 640 of the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) recognized the tea as a geographical indication product; the applicant is the Xian’an District Tea Association (咸宁市咸安区茶叶协会).
- Discrepancy in age: The same city website, in a 2010 article on Hubei 青砖茶, writes of “more than a hundred years” of production in the Xianning area — against “more than 400 years” in the 2020 material.
- Markets: According to the 2020 material, tea of the “生甡川” brand was sold to Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet, Northeast China, Mongolia, Russia, Japan, Western Europe and North America.
- Cultural significance: The district is building a public brand on the name.
3. Botanical Description and Raw Material
- Varieties / Cultivars: The regulation names as the main ones 福鼎大白 (Fúdǐng dàbái), 白毫早 (Báiháozǎo), 碧香早 (Bìxiāngzǎo) and 鄂茶8号 (Èchá 8); 黄金芽 (Huángjīnyá) is planted as a new variety for development — according to the regulation, with a high amino acid content.
- Two kinds of raw material: For the facing tea (面茶, miànchá) — young tender leaves of the first flush of the season, with stems; for the filling (里茶, lǐchá) — mature, fully opened leaves of the same season, mostly with red stems.
- Harvest: Into clean, ventilated bamboo baskets; the leaf is taken to the factory without delay.
- Care: The basal organic fertilizer is applied in autumn at a depth of 20 cm or more: 200–250 kg of oilseed cake or commercial organic fertilizer, or 1,000–2,000 kg of manure per 667 m².
4. Terroir and Cultivation Features
- Topography: A transition from the Mufu Mountains (幕阜山) to the Jianghan Plain; the highest point is Zaobeiyan peak of Mount Damu, 954.1 m, and the hills of the center and east lie at 50–300 m.
- Soils: Six types, mostly neutral or slightly acidic, pH 5.5–7.5. Red soils (46.04 % of the area) lie on low mountains and hills at an altitude of 50–800 m.
- Climate: Subtropical humid monsoon; 1,879.65 hours of sunshine a year (42 % of the possible), about 150 rainy days and 1,531.4 mm of precipitation.
- Environment: According to the regulation, the gardens lie in an environment close to pristine, without industrial pollution within a radius of five kilometers; the products must meet the standard for pollution-free tea (无公害食品 茶叶, NY5244-2004).
- Area and output: The regulation — 10,000 mu of main gardens and 5,000 t (the reference book dates these figures to 2014); the card in the geographical indication database — about 20,000 mu and more than 2,000 t.
5. Production Technology
The protection regulation sets two sequences: lǎoqīngchá — fresh leaf → fixation → rolling → sun-drying; the brick — lǎoqīngchá → piling → sorting → blending → pressing → drying.
- Fixation (杀青, shāqīng): In a drum at a wall temperature of about 350 °C for about a minute, until the leaf softens.
- Rolling (揉捻, róuniǎn): While hot, following the scheme “light — heavy — light pressure”, 10–20 minutes.
- Sun-drying (晒干, shàigān): To a moisture content of about 15 %.
- Piling (渥堆, wòduī): The raw material is moistened to 28–36 % and stacked by grade in piles about 3 m high. After 3–5 days the pile heats up to about 60 °C — it is turned; after another 2–3 days the piles are combined into larger ones, about 5 m high, and when they heat up again to about 60 °C, ventilation channels are cut into them. In all, piling lasts 20–30 days, down to a moisture content of about 12 %.
- Sorting and blending (复制、拼配, fùzhì, pīnpèi): The raw material is cut, sifted and cleaned of impurities, and the grades are mixed in a set proportion.
- Pressing (压制, yāzhì): The raw material is softened with steam and pressed in molds.
- Drying (干燥, gānzào): In a steam-heated chamber, rising from 35–40 °C to 55–70 °C over 7–11 days.
The reference book describes it differently: a hydraulic press, sandalwood molds and drying over charcoal. The city portal, in a general description of Hubei 青砖茶 (not a requirement for this tea), gives a 2 kg slab measuring 34 × 17 × 4 cm: the outer layer, 洒面, from the best raw material, the inner facing layer, 二面, slightly simpler (both layers together 0.125 kg), and the filling, 里茶, from the simplest (1.75 kg).
6. Organoleptic Characteristics
- Dry leaf appearance: A small hard brick of neat appearance (外形美观，形状为小砖型，质地坚硬); the color is greenish-brown (青褐).
- Dry leaf aroma: A separate description was not found in the sources consulted.
- Liquor aroma: Clean (纯正).
- Taste: Rich and clean (浓纯). The general description of the class adds: without grassy “greenness”.
- Liquor color: Red and bright (红亮); for the class as a whole — red-yellow.
- Spent leaves (wet leaves): There are no descriptions for this tea; for Hubei 青砖茶 as a whole — dark, almost black, coarse (暗黑粗老).
7. Chemical Composition
| Indicator | 2015 regulation and 2025 CNIPA requirements |
|---|---|
| Water-soluble extractives | ≥ 20 % |
| Polyphenols | ≥ 0.5 % |
| Caffeine | ≥ 1.0 % |
| Free amino acids | ≥ 0.10 % |
The 2025 CNIPA requirements repeat the thresholds of the 2015 regulation; the thresholds for polyphenols and amino acids are very low.
8. Health Properties
There are no verified data on the effects of this particular tea. The long list of traditional notions of its benefits in the protection regulation is not verified data.
9. Brewing
The method from the protection regulation: chop a small piece off the brick with a knife, break it up, pour water over it in a proportion of 1 : 50 and boil for 2–3 minutes after it comes to the boil. A report of the Ministry of Agriculture on neighboring Chibi says that the Hubei brick is opened with a special tea awl (茶锥) and then boiled.
Class practice for pressed dark tea is short infusions: 5 g per 100–150 ml of water at 95–100 °C in a clay teapot or a gaiwan; rinse and discard, the first infusion 10–20 seconds, then many infusions, each a little longer.
10. Storage
Class practice. In a dry, ventilated place away from light and odors, in paper packaging, at room temperature.
11. Price and Counterfeits
Price data were not found in the sources consulted.
- How to avoid counterfeits:
- Look for the geographical indication mark. The 50th provincial list of those admitted to use the mark (August 2025) names three companies: 咸宁市柏庄茶业有限公司, 咸宁市剑春茶业合作社 and 咸宁市三山川茶业股份有限公司. The 2025 number, No. 642, appears there for all 1,153 entries — it is the admission of users, not the recognition of the product (No. 640).
- Check the origin: the seven towns and townships of Xian’an District.
- For the agricultural product indication, permission to use the mark is issued by the district Organic Tea Association — a producer without its admission is not entitled to apply the mark.
- Do not confuse it with the brick tea of neighboring Chibi — that has its own name and its own zone.
- Do not confuse Xian’an (咸安) in Hubei with Xianyang (咸阳) in Shaanxi, where their own pressed Fu tea is made.
12. Interesting Facts
- Piling is scheduled day by day in the regulation — about a month of work.
- The raw material is divided by its place in the brick: the tender leaf goes to the facing, the mature leaf with red stems to the filling.
- The method of consumption in the regulation is boiling, not steeping.
13. Comparison with Other Dark Teas
- Hubei Qing Zhuan (湖北青砖): Hubei “green brick” as a whole, centered on Yangloudong; Xián’ān zhuānchá is the protected name of one district within the same tradition.
- Lao Qing Cha (老青茶): The semi-finished tea from which the Xian’an brick is also pressed.
- Linxiang Heicha (临湘黑茶): Dark tea of Linxiang County in Hunan Province.
In Conclusion:
Xián’ān zhuānchá is a dark brick tea of southern Hubei with a detailed regulation: seven towns, a facing of tender leaf and a filling of mature leaf, a month of piling, and small hard bricks with a bright red liquor. The sources estimate the age of the tradition differently — “more than 400 years” and “more than a hundred”.
Sources
Geographical indication
Full list — on the Sources page