Qing Brick Tea: Hubei, Yangloudong and the Mongolian Road

Qing brick tea is a Hubei dark tea pressed into a large rectangular brick, historically made at Yangloudong in Chibi and stamped with a logo. The name means green brick, referring to the colour of the leaf before fermentation rather than to the finished tea, which is dark brown. It was the main tea of the Russian and Mongolian trade routes and it is still made in the same shape.

The brick is one of the oldest continuously produced dark teas in China, and the factory that made it is one of the oldest industrial tea sites in the country. The product is a piece of trade history as much as a drink.

Yangloudong and the route

Yangloudong is a town in Chibi, Hubei, that grew around the tea trade in the Qing period. Bricks were pressed there, loaded onto boats on the Yangtze and carried north by caravan to Mongolia and to Russia.

The route ran through Hankou, which was a major tea port, and then overland through Shanxi and beyond. A brick was the unit of trade: a standard size, a standard weight, and a stamped mark that identified the maker.

The Russian trade was large enough that Russian buyers influenced the product, and some bricks were made to Russian specifications. That is why the qing brick is associated with the Russian market more than with the domestic one.

The trade declined in the twentieth century and the factory continued at a smaller scale. The modern product is made for a domestic market that buys it as a heritage item as much as a drink.

The product

A qing brick is a large rectangular block, typically two kilograms, pressed from fermented leaf and stamped on the face with a logo. The most recognisable mark is the character for tea in a circle, known as the chuazi brand.

The leaf is coarse and the fermentation is full, which gives a dark, earthy, slightly smoky cup with a sweet finish. It is plainer than a fu brick and less aromatic than a Liubao.

The brick is dense and needs a pick to break. A clean break along the grain gives leaves and a clean break across it gives dust, and the dust brews bitter.

Some bricks are aged for years before sale and the aged version is softer and more complex. The age is usually stamped or written on the brick, which makes qing brick one of the easier dark teas to date.

• Qing means green, after the leaf before fermentation.
• It was made at Yangloudong in Chibi, Hubei.
• The route ran north to Mongolia and Russia.
• A brick is typically about two kilograms.
• The chuazi mark is the best known stamp.
• Age is often marked on the brick.

Brewing and what to expect

Use boiling water, six to eight grams per 150 millilitres, and a rinse. The leaf is coarse and compressed, so the first steep is thin and the third is usually the best.

Simmering is traditional and gives a fuller cup. Five grams in a litre of water for five minutes produces a dark, sweet drink with a smoky edge.

With milk and salt it becomes the pastoral drink the brick was designed for. A drinker who finds it plain brewed plain should try it that way once.

Storage should be dry and ventilated, and a brick keeps for decades. A damp brick grows mould and the smell does not clear after the rinse, which is the difference between aged and spoiled.

The tea is inexpensive by dark tea standards and it has a longer recorded history than most. That combination makes it a good introduction to the category for a drinker who wants the traditional product rather than a fashionable one.

Yangloudong today

The town retains its old street of tea workshops and a museum, and the factory still presses bricks. It is one of the few Chinese tea sites where the industrial history is visible rather than replaced.

The product is made at a smaller scale than in the trade’s peak and it is sold mostly to a domestic market that values the heritage. That is a common pattern for teas that were once commodities.

A visitor can see the presses and the storage, which is unusual: most tea production is closed to visitors and this one is not.

The tea itself is inexpensive and traditional. A drinker who wants a dark tea with a documented history and a low price will find few better options.

• The old tea street and a museum remain in Yangloudong.
• The factory still presses bricks.
• Production is smaller than at the trade’s peak.
• The market is domestic and heritage-driven.
• Visitors can see the presses and storage.
• It is inexpensive for a documented traditional tea.

How to break and brew a brick

Use a tea pick or a sturdy knife and work along the grain of the press. A brick has a direction, and cutting across it produces dust.

Break off a piece large enough for one session rather than crumbling the whole brick. The remaining brick keeps better intact.

Rinse the piece for ten seconds in boiling water. The rinse removes dust from the press and opens the compressed leaf.

Brew at boiling, six grams per 150 millilitres, and expect the third steep to be the best. A brick is dense and the first infusion is mostly the rinse doing its work.

The Russian connection in detail

Russia was the largest foreign market for Chinese brick tea from the eighteenth century into the twentieth. The trade ran overland because the sea route to Europe was controlled by other powers, and the bricks were the ideal cargo: dense, stackable and imperishable.

Russian buyers specified the weight, the shape and the mark, which is why some qing bricks carry Russian-language stamps. The product was made to order for a foreign customer in a way that most Chinese tea was not.

The trade collapsed after 1917 and again in the 1930s, and the factory survived by supplying the domestic and Mongolian markets at a smaller scale.

That history is visible in the product: a brick made to a nineteenth-century Russian specification is still being pressed in the same shape today.

Comparing it with the other dark teas

Qing brick is plainer than fu brick and less aromatic than Liubao. It sits at the traditional, utilitarian end of the category, which is where it started.

Its advantage is price and documented history. A drinker can buy a brick with a known factory and a known trade route for less than a comparable pu-erh.

Its disadvantage is that it is not fashionable. The market rewards names, and qing brick has a name that most buyers outside China have never met.

For a drinker rather than a collector that is an opportunity. The tea is good, the price is low and the history is real.

A note on the factory. Yangloudong is one of the oldest continuously operating tea factories in China, and the building and the presses are part of a heritage listing rather than a modern plant.

That gives the product a provenance that most teas cannot match, and it also means the scale is limited. The factory cannot expand without leaving the heritage site, so the output stays small.

For a drinker the consequence is that qing brick is a fixed quantity rather than a growing brand. It will not become fashionable and expensive in the way that other regional teas have.

That is a comfortable position for a buyer. The tea is good, the price is stable and the history is documented, and none of those things depends on the market’s attention.

A final note on the leaf grade. Qing brick is made from coarse mature leaf and stems, which is why it is cheap and why it brews dark and full. A drinker expecting the refinement of a bud tea will be disappointed, and one expecting a strong traditional tea will not be.

One more point about the shape. A two kilogram brick is heavy enough to need two hands and small enough to store on a shelf, which is why the format survived when the caravan trade did not.

That is the whole of the product and it is a modest one to describe. A coarse brick, a long route, a factory that still presses it, and a price that has not been inflated by fashion.

Frequently asked questions