Tea in Shaanxi means something specific. The province is not a tea-growing region, but the town of Jingyang, north of Xi'an, was for centuries the processing centre for brick tea sent west along the Silk Road, and the style that developed there - Fu brick tea - is still what Xi'an teahouses pour most often.
What Fu tea is
Fu brick tea is a dark, post-fermented tea compressed into dense slabs, traditionally weighing a kilogram or more, and aged after pressing. Its distinguishing feature is a golden-yellow mould that grows inside the brick during the ageing process, which gives the tea an unusually smooth, slightly earthy and sweet taste with notes that people compare to dried fruit. Because it is fermented, the liquor brews thick and dark and can be re-steeped many times. Historically it was traded north and west, and it remains a staple in the teahouses of Xi'an and in Inner Mongolia and Tibet.
The teahouse experience
A Xi'an teahouse is a slow place. You order a pot for the table rather than a cup, and it is refilled with hot water for as long as you sit. Alongside the tea come small plates of sunflower seeds, dried fruit, peanuts, melon seeds and sweets. Expect chess or card games on the tables, and older customers who settle in for three or four hours. In the old town there are both traditional shops with wooden benches and newer tea rooms in converted courtyard houses with better lighting and quieter music.
Where to go
Tea houses cluster inside the city wall, particularly around the Muslim Quarter, along Shuncheng Lane below the South Gate, and in the streets north of the Bell Tower. Some combine tea with a short performance of Qinqiang or a tea-pouring demonstration. Jingyang itself, about an hour away, has a tea museum and the old processing yards, and makes a half-day trip if you are interested in how brick tea is actually made.
Buying tea to take home
Compressed bricks are sold in teahouses, specialist shops and the Muslim Quarter, and they keep for years if stored dry and away from strong smells. Prices range from very cheap to very high depending on age and grade, and much of what is sold to visitors is young tea sold as aged. Buy from a shop that will brew a sample for you, and be sceptical of dramatic claims about vintage.
