I love moldy Fuzhuan (aka Fu Brick) teas. When Bitterleaf Tea came out with the 2000 Gold Dust Fuzhuan Anhua Heicha, I bought a full 250 gram bag. During the 2019 NW Tea Festival, this was the tea in my Fu Zhuan focus tasting class.
As much as I love owning stupidly large bricks of Fuzhuan, Bitterleaf Tea’s broken bag makes it more convenient to drink. My package had three large chunks with some dust on the bottom to even out the weight.
Leaf and Steeping Method
Confirmed mold!
Fu Bricks has a distinct scent, which Gold Dust also has. It smells like nectar, honey, a bit of staleness like a dry storage puer.
I find moldy Fuzhuan likes a bit more leaf, so I used 1 gram of leaf per 12ml of vessel size. As usual, I used boiling water. I did a rinse, but you may want to drink the rinse to get maximum mold consumption. The steeped leaf has a stale old log scent wrapped in powdered honey.
Tasting of Bitterleaf Tea’s 2000 Gold Dust Fuzhuan Anhua Heicha
First and Second Infusion: Gold Dust brews up dark brown and perfectly clear, looking great in glass cups.
The Fuzhuan sips in a sour old fallen forest log that has dried out through the summer. Weaving through the log has a honey note and agave nectar.
There is something about golden flowers mold that just now instantly tea drunks me up. I haven’t decided if it is paired association of being totally wrecked every time I drink it, or the mold has something frog licking nuts about it.
Third and Fourth Infusion: The sour, medicinal leaning note is showing through more, tasting of wood, oranges, and honey.
The tea energy is high as I got into an argument with talking to myself out loud.
Fifth Infusion: Bitterleaf tea’s Gold Dust is losing steam on the honey note, powering through with an old log taste mixed with driftwood and sappy tree goo.
Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth Infusion: Gold Dust got good again tasting tree sap sweet with a light driftwood note. I finally noticed the oily texture on this tea. In the final infusions, I did around 15 minutes to get every last bit of the fuzhuan flavor out.
Comments
Bitterleaf Tea’s 2000 Gold Dust Fuzhuan Anhua Heicha is a lightly dusted golden flower tea with a dry-aged storage taste to it. The notes are honey, dark, and woodsy without going bitter or dry.
Gold Dust is an inexpensive tea, at this time clocking in at $0.11 a gram, so easy way to try some golden flowers without buying 2 kilos. Bitterleaf even sells a 25 gram sample.
Critically, Gold Dust is not as honey and mind-altering as other Fu Bricks I own, but Gold Dust is one of the better, inexpensive, and easily obtainable golden flower teas that doesn’t need a taobao agent.
