Dark

Guangxi & Cantonese

The southern dark-tea family rooted in Cantonese trade and warehouse culture. Liu Bao from Guangxi is stored and aged in baskets, developing a deep earthy, woody, and sometimes camphor or betel-nut character through years of humid warehouse aging. Liu An basket tea originated in Anhui but is historically aged and consumed in Hong Kong and Guangdong, where generations of tea drinkers built the appreciation for its distinctive aged profile. Both styles have deep roots in overseas Cantonese tea culture; they reward collectors willing to engage with aging as part of the experience.

teabert, the tealytics teapot, keeper of the kettle

This is the Cantonese-aged corner of dark tea, Liu Bao from Guangxi and Liu An from Anhui, kept in humid warehouses until they turn deep, woody and earthy. They were aged and drunk mostly in Hong Kong and Guangdong, where generations of drinkers decided that a damp warehouse was an ingredient.

Styles in this family

Liu Bao

Liu Bao is a dark (hei cha) tea from Wuzhou in Guangxi province, aged in bamboo baskets and defined by a smooth earthiness that, in well-aged examples, develops…

Lu An Hei Cha (Basket Tea)

Liu An (also written Lu'an) basket tea is a post-fermented dark tea from Anhui province, packed into small bamboo baskets lined with bamboo leaves and aged,…

How it's made

The steps overlap in practice; this is a reading order, not a set of separate stages.