The degree of fermentation above 70% (this standard is not an official standard, similar to the concept of common name) belongs to full fermentation, and the degree below this level is lightly fermented tea. Heavy fermented tea usually refers to cooked tea with a fermentation degree of more than 90%.
For example, if a light fermentation is an unripe green apple, then a heavy fermentation is an overripe apple that has turned wine red. At this time, all the substances that can be transformed in the tea have been used up, and the color of the bottom of the leaves is usually dark brown or even darker. For example, the classic Menghai tea factory 7572 cooked tea is a representative of re-fermented cooked tea.
The history of cooked Pu-erh tea was tentatively fermented in the early days. For a long time after the invention of the Otto pile process in 1973, light fermentation was widely used. With the continuous maturity of the fermentation process of major tea factories and the accumulation of years of experience, moderate fermentation is generally used. Since 2005, the Pu-erh tea industry has bid farewell to the era of light fermentation and moderate fermentation, and entered the era of heavy fermentation.
Lightly Fermented Pu-erh Ripe Tea Cake
So which one is better, light fermentation or heavy fermentation?
Fermentation is the process of softening tea, so that people can drink it in a short time, making the tea soup smooth, smooth, soft and sweet.
The heavily fermented tea soup only shows the thickness and smoothness. The tea flavor was watered down, weak, or even gone. Ripe tea made by re-fermentation process is better for drinking now. The taste is smooth and slightly sweet, and it can be drunk after aging for a few months after the heap flavor completely dissipates. The shortcomings are also obvious, and the value of later aging is small. It does not moisten the throat after drinking, and the commonly used raw materials are slightly worse.
The cooked tea produced by the light fermentation process retains some of the salient features of raw tea: such as aftertaste, body fluid, bitterness and astringency, and the tea soup is not as rich and smooth as fully fermented cooked tea. The color of the leaf base is also lighter, and these characteristics are very similar to the old raw tea stored for more than ten years.
It is important to emphasize here that lightly fermented cooked tea is only close to old raw tea in terms of the smoothness of the tea soup and the bottom of the leaves. But the difference between the two is very big.
off-the-ground fermentation
But what manufacturers need to understand when making tea is that tea is adaptable. Manufacturers need to be well aware of each product, and according to the characteristics of raw materials, heavy fermentation should be done without heavy fermentation. Instead of imposing a light fermentation process on every tea, that is what we call moderate fermentation. Moderate fermentation does not mean 80% fermentation or 8.50% fermentation, which is a vague concept of fermentation degree. Instead, according to the characteristics of each tea, it is piled and fermented, so as to fully display the characteristics of the tea. So, do you have an answer to the question, is light fermentation better or heavy fermentation better?
