As seen in this photo the apex of a tea tree's shoots have what is called "hong geng" and "lu geng", "red stalk" and "green stalk". The color of the stalk from which the leaves sprout indicates its age, and usually in Anhua the green-stalk leaves are used to make (higher priced) red or green tea, while only the red stalk leaves are used for dark tea. There are many reasons proffered for why the best leaves are not used to make qianliang logs. The most popular of these is that younger leaves have too much caffeine and other high-energy polyphenols within them, which will combust under the incredible pressure exerted on the leaves when squeezing them into a qianliang logs. This process takes about seven men with large levers pulling on bamboo cords.

That a qianliang is made with summer tea leaves known to be less flavorful has always struck us as unfortunate, to say the least. So when we met a surprisingly candid tea maker with forty years experience (far right), we asked if it was truly impossible for young spring tea leaves to withstand the pressure of the qianliang process. He said that such qianliangs can and have been made. It is true that when using young leaves a qianliang must be compressed more carefully and by a skilled team, but using high-energy spring leaves is not really a problem. The problem is that this is too expensive for current market conditions. In the past these were made and they likely will be made again in the future. For now profit maximization forbids it.

Qianliang's are massive amounts of tea, which while expensive (ranging from 2000-4000 yuan per log or US$ 400-600) when this is divided by their weight of 37 kilograms the price is still quite cheap when compared to that of puer and other teas.