Yiyang Fu Brick Tea

Yiyang Fu Brick Tea

　　Fu Tea – The “Gold” of Dark Tea

　　Fu tea is a type of Anhua dark tea, a specialty of Hunan, containing golden flowers that help reduce fat, blood pressure, and blood sugar. Known as “black gold,” it rivals the value of gold. Fu tea is handmade and involves a unique fermentation process called “flowering.” The “flowers” referred to in this process are the golden flowers. Fu tea was originally known as “lake tea” because its raw materials mainly came from Hunan. It was also called “summer tea” due to being primarily produced during the hot summer months. Later, it earned the name “fu tea” because its aroma and efficacy resembled those of the herb “tuzhuling.”

　　Fu tea has a history of over a thousand years. Around 1644, Anhua dark tea was exported to the western regions, which helped establish the fame of “fu tea” and gave rise to a generation of “Hunan merchants.” The “flowering” process of fu tea refers to placing the formed fu tea bricks in an environment with suitable temperature and humidity, allowing a yellow beneficial probiotic to grow within the bricks. This probiotic has been identified as “Eurotium cristatum,” commonly known as golden flowers. These golden flowers in Anhua dark tea absorb active compounds from the tea leaves and produce a series of beneficial small-molecule compounds for human health, giving fu tea its distinctive flavor and efficacy.

　　Research on the effects of the golden flowers in fu tea has drawn widespread attention from both industry and academia in recent years. Experts and scholars from Hunan Agricultural University have clinically proven that fu tea, as a natural beverage for reducing fat, blood sugar, and blood pressure, plays a significant role in preventing and treating modern urban lifestyle diseases. In ancient China, traditional Chinese medicine documented the use of aged fu tea decoctions to treat diabetes. It is precisely because of the notable health benefits of the golden flowers in fu tea that it is called “black gold,” rivaling the value of gold.

　　Yiyang fu tea is a major product among border-sale teas, with the production of fu brick tea by Yiyang Tea Factory accounting for one quarter of the national output. Fu brick tea has unique efficacy in reducing greasiness and fat, achieved through a special “flowering” process that fills the bricks with “golden flowers.” The more flourishing the golden flowers, the higher the quality of the tea. The golden flowers are the spore bodies of Eurotium cristatum and can only form under specific temperature and humidity conditions. The precursor to fu brick tea was the Shaanxi “Jingyang Brick,” and in 1953, fu brick tea was successfully produced in Anhua.