Liu 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, much like its better-known Guangxi relative Liu Bao. Long a staple of Hong Kong and Southeast Asian teahouses, well-aged Liu An is now a sought-after collector's tea. The thing that matters most is age and storage: this is a tea built to be kept, and young Liu An is only the starting point.
Aged Liu An should pour a clear, deep liquor with a smooth, mellow, slightly woody-sweet character and a clean aged depth, often carrying a trace of the bamboo leaf it was packed with. The tea is typically wrapped in bamboo leaf inside small baskets, so check that the wrapper is intact and the leaf is not musty or sour from bad storage. As with Liu Bao, provenance and storage history drive both quality and price at the aged end. Young Liu An is rougher and earthier and benefits from years of rest.
Liu An basket tea comes from Anhui, traditionally associated with the Qimen and Lu'an districts, and is grouped with the Cantonese-storage dark teas because, like Liu Bao, it was shipped to and aged in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. The tea is packed into small bamboo baskets lined and topped with bamboo leaves, then post-fermented and aged. The old Hong Kong stocks set the reference point for what mature Liu An should taste like.
Gongfu: 6-8 g per 100 ml, 95-100°C, one rinse, then 10-20 second steeps extending gradually; aged Liu An is forgiving, much like aged Liu Bao or aged shou. Western: 4-5 g per 250 ml, 95-100°C, 3-4 minutes. A clay pot suits it. Loosen the leaf from its bamboo wrapper before brewing.
€8-40 (about $9-44) per 100 g for current production; documented older Hong Kong-stored Liu An commands far higher collector prices.
Prices reviewed June 2026
Liu Bao
Liu Bao is the close Guangxi relative, also basket-packed and HK-aged; the two share a storage tradition but differ in region and in the betel-nut note Liu Bao can develop.
Anhua Dark Tea
Anhua hei cha is the Hunan dark tea family; Liu An is the Anhui basket tea, a separate origin within the broad dark tea world.
Aged Shou (5+ years)
Aged ripe puerh and aged Liu An are both smooth, dark, and forgiving, but puerh comes from Yunnan wet-pile fermentation while Liu An is a slow basket-aged Anhui tea.
Tian Jian
Tian jian is a loose Hunan dark grade brewed fairly young; Liu An is an Anhui basket tea whose whole point is long aging.
Liu An basket tea shares almost nothing but a name with Liu An gua pian (Lu'an melon seed), the celebrated Anhui green tea from the same region; one is a dark, aged, basket-packed hei cha and the other a fresh pan-fired green, a classic trap for newcomers.