One Year, One Kilo Fu Zhuan Brick

On January 1 of this year I started a project of drinking up my 2012 CNNP Fu Zhuan brick tea. A full kilo (1000g) is about the same size as 3 regular size beengs of puerh. I chose to drink this Fu brick as my morning cuppa this year with the idea of paying attention to my tea purchases and whether or not buying a full kilo brick is a wise purchase. In terms of dollars, Fu brick is very much a value purchase and I paid around $65 for this brick, or 6.5 pennies per gram. 

When I started the tea back in January, I estimated drinking this brick up would take me until May if I drank 7g per day, or October if I drank 7g every two days. As it turns out, I have been drinking around 7g every two days because I can get 6 steepings from a portion and so one session lasts me for two days. Based on the size of the remaining brick, I still feel I'm on track for finishing the tea in October. 

Comparing my current photo of the tea with the one I took for my last update, I can see a real difference in the level of golden flowers. The last photo I took was in back in March at the driest point of winter in my house. The flowers are tiny so click on the photos to see close-up.

March's photo

Now in June, my new photo shows improved growth of golden flowers. 

June photo

We had a few weeks of very hot and muggy weather in late May. While I do have a window air conditioning unit in the house, the AC unit does not get all the muggy water out of the air and my house is still quite warm. The Fu brick sucked up all that heat and moisture. The brick is not as heavily encrusted with flowers as it could be, but the current state is definitely an improvement. Having a Fu brick in the house might be a good gauge to judge my storage conditions, because I can see actual results quickly. It's a "good" fungus, and better a good fungus than a bad mold! I feel reassured that a tea can bounce back from dry winter conditions. The brick has also loosened up some, the tea comes off now in these odd rounded-ball chunks that I have to break up. 

Now well into six months of drinking this tea most days, alternated here and there with a bit of hongcha, I am fairly accustomed to this tea. When I drink something else on a day or two, I find myself missing the Fu brick and feel glad to go back to it. On the other hand, this tea is also somewhat bland and simple compared to puerh tea. It is not very interesting and not complex. I have to give my respect to CNNP teas for the workhorse daily teas that they are, and in terms of puerh doing better for $65 a kilo is probably not possible. For Fu brick tea, however, I feel Mojun's Fu tea is so much more flavorful for not much more money. If I feel inclined to buy more Fu Zhuan tea, I will definitely buy something else over this CNNP, but it's a really small complaint for the amount of tea I am getting with this one purchase. 

Because the tea is not terribly interesting, finding more to say about it is rather like a coffee drinker trying to talk about Folger's. I like to think Fu brick tea is helpful for my digestion but I honestly don't notice any difference on the days I drink hongcha instead. Maybe the gut aspect of it is more noticeable for people who don't consume anything else that might help the gut, but I eat yogurt and kimchi on many days too, so I have a gut luxury in my diet. 

If my Fu tea looks vastly different by the end of the warm summer, I will do another update here and post a new photo. But if the tea looks fairly similar to my photo here, I will just update and give some last thoughts when I finally finish off the brick.