“Kang zhuang cha” is a heavily compressed brick heicha segmented like a chocolate block. Zhuang cha means brick tea, while kang is a word taken into Chinese from the tibetan word kham that means peace, happy, and also refers to a historical region encompassing modern day Tibet and Sichuan. This is a tea traditionally manufactured in the city of Ya’an in Sichuan proivince for the Tibetan market. In tibet this tea is boiled in a mixture of yak butter and water. This style of tea has been produced for hundreds of years. The leaves are wet piled and fermented at 50-70 degrees celsius then sorted dried and heavily compressed into bricks of various shapes. This particular tea was produced by the Sizhuang company and pressed into a 248g chocolate like block in 2015 and stored in Lhasa Tibet.

While this tea is often drunk with yak butter, milk, or even toasted grains, berries, and other additives it also stands fine on its own. I recommend rinsing this tea once or twice.

It takes a long couple of first brews to allow the dense block to open up, but when it does you will be surprised with a very sweet, mellow and slightly fruity and floral flavour. Longer brews after the first two can produce pleasant sourness and minor bitterness that coalesces at the bottom of the cup.

I have 1 whole still wrapped block of this tea available that is shown in the photos which is being sold whole and another opened block that is being sold in individual pieces, this tea is very compressed and you will need a sturdy puerh knife or similar to break it apart, I recommend a sharp flat-nosed screw driver and a hammer hammering implement. Weight of individual blocks may vary but are approximately 9-12g