Hei Cha - traditional post-fermented teas
Hei Cha is a post-fermented tea, just like ripe Pu-erh. Essentially, we can look at this tea as the forefather of Pu-erh tea. Hei Cha 黑茶 translates as Dark Tea. The history of this tea goes back over 1000 years. Although, with time, the processing methods of Dark Tea have evolved, people still highly revere this tea throughout China as a regional specialty and a precious historical inheritance. Farmers generally process Hei Cha using wet piling process (Wo Dui 渥堆). However, the specific processing techniques vary depending on the Dark Tea type and production area. Originally tea farmers produced Dark Tea for export on the Silk Road to territories along China's borders. They always compressed the tea into cakes and bricks for ease of transportation and freshness.
2020 Ishizuchi Kurocha - Japanese Fermented Tea from Ehime Prefecture
32,14 € excl. VAT
Goishicha - Japanese Fermented Tea from Kochi Prefecture
16,07 € excl. VAT
Japanese Fermented Tea Yamabuki Nadeshiko
17,68 € excl. VAT
2008 Hunan Golden Flower Dark Tea | Bai Sha Xi Fu Zhuan Hei Cha - brick 300 g
10,18 € excl. VAT
2004 Wild Old Tree Liu Bao | Liu Bao Ye Sheng Hei Cha
23,93 € excl. VAT
2017 Hunan Golden Flower Dark Tea | Fu Zhuan Hei Cha - brick 500 g
13,48 € excl. VAT
Eurotium cristatum (Golden Flower)
Eurotium cristatum (E. cristatum), commonly known as “golden flower”, is the dominant strain in the microbial fermentation process of Fu brick tea. E. cristatum has favorable biological characteristics, including enzyme production, antimicrobial properties, immune regulation, antitumor properties, fat reduction capabilities, and weight loss benefits. With its probiotic characteristics, E. cristatum can be combined with different varieties of tea substrates to make a variety of fermented teas. More importantly, in the process of tea fermentation, E. cristatum can secrete a variety of extracellular enzymes, including some hydrolytic enzymes and oxidoreductases. They metabolize and transform various chemical components in tea through a series of reactions such as oxidation, degradation, and condensation, which significantly affect the quality of tea.
Fu Zhuan Cha 茯磚茶 - Tea Brick from Hunan
Dark tea has a long history in China, with different types produced in several provinces. The most important types include dark tea from Hunan, and its most distinctive variant is Fuzhuan Cha. The origin of Fuzhuan Cha dark tea is closely related to the nomadic peoples of northern and western China, such as the Mongols, Tibetans and Uighurs. Their diet, rich in meat, milk and bread, lacks fiber and vitamins, making tea essential for digestion and nutritional balance. They consider tea indispensable, even more so than food for a short time.
Post-fermented Teas Hei Cha 黑茶
Dark tea (Hei Cha 黑茶) is post-fermented tea, which means that after the tea leaves are oxidized after harvesting, they undergo accelerated controlled fermentation. For accelerated fermentation, the wet layering process ((Wo Dui 渥堆) is most often used, when biochemical reactions occur under the influence of microorganisms. In oxidation, biochemical reactions occur when interacting with atmospheric oxygen and typically last for several hours. The fermentation process can take several hours to several months, but can then continue without limitation for decades.