What Is The "Golden Flower" of Dark Green Tea? Can It Judge The Quality?

Dark green tea is one of the 6 tea categories in China. Many people like dark green tea mainly because it can be more fragrant with aging, mellow, and sweet taste, and has a unique health effect.

Often drink dark green tea with friends, sure to know that dark green tea has a unique secret, Jinhua, that is, prominent sacculus.

So, what is Jinhua? Can Jinhua judge the quality of dark green tea? Let's talk about this topic today.

 What is Jinhua

Jinhua is a special probiotic in the aging process of drak green tea production, which is called Eurotium cristatum.

According to scientific research, these probiotics can only be produced under certain temperature and humidity conditions when there is a moderate space in the stem and inside of the tea.

On the surface, probiotics grow like a "flower" process, with golden color, dots, or even a piece, so tea friends call it "Golden Flower".

But it should be noted that not all dark green tea has golden flowers.

And Jinhua has experience in much dark green tea, especially Fu brick tea in Shaanxi and Hunan, which is also called Jinhua brick in many places.

 Where does the golden flower come from

"Jinhua" is an essential production process (blooming process) in the production process of Fu tea. Under the action of certain hydrothermal, it forms exospore enzyme through the mass propagation of dominant strain, Ascaris cristatum, and polymerizes and decomposes with polyphenol compounds in tea through exospore enzyme and hydrothermal action, and together with microorganism itself, The special color, aroma, taste, and shape of Fu tea are formed.

General dark green tea in the experience of the artificial pile and pressing molding will be directly dried packaging.

However, Fu brick tea did not do so. After being pressed and shaped, it was directly packaged and placed in a specific environment for some time. A large number of microorganisms inside the tea propagated rapidly, forming sacculus cristatum, thus producing the "Golden Flower" phenomenon.

The drying speed of Fu brick tea is relatively slow, to make the internal microorganisms fully bloom, and form a clear and stable number of golden flowers. Finally, we can see that the surface of the tea presents yellow closed capsule-like small spots, which is also called golden flower.

 All golden tea is not the president

As mentioned above, Jinhua is a kind of cristatum. This kind of probiotic is very delicate and fastidious and has high requirements for the activity environment and space.

For example, it requires that the raw materials are relatively coarse, there must be tea stems, and the tightness should be appropriate when pressing so that it can have space for activities.

At the same time, tea should be rich in the content of pectin, otherwise, it can not reproduce in large quantities.

From this point of view, only Anhua Fu brick tea will grow the golden flower. Other black brick, brick, Qianliang tea, and other dark green tea, generally do not have gold flowers.

As for Pu'er tea, whether it is attributed to the scope of dark green tea, there is still debate in the industry.

There is certainly no golden flower in raw tea (even if there is, it is estimated that 99.9% of people have never seen it), while the production process of cooked tea is somewhat similar to that of dark green tea, so there is a possibility of producing a golden flower.

However, it is not so easy for Pu'er ripe tea to produce golden flowers. It is even more difficult than Fu brick tea. It requires luck and manual intervention. It is necessary to ensure that the storage space of ripe tea is dry outside and wet inside cold outside and hot inside.

Although this kind of extreme environment can produce golden flowers, it is not necessarily a beneficial bursaria coronatus, but also a poisonous Aspergillus flavus. Because the two look very similar, it is easy to confuse if you don't distinguish them carefully.

 Pay attention to golden flower fungus and Aspergillus flavus

Judging from the yellow plaque on the tea cake and brick, the golden flower is very regular and granular. However, Aspergillus flavus is patchy and irregular. 

In addition, by smelling and drinking, we can make a further judgments.

There is a kind of mildew and mildew, and some of them are caused by the temperature.

However, the golden brick tea has an obvious fragrance of mushroom flowers, a natural and pleasant aroma.

Finally, I would like to remind you of one point. When buying and drinking dark green tea, do not blindly emphasize the golden flower. If there is a gold flower, it is naturally good. However, without a golden flower, it does not mean that the tea is relatively poor. It is only the unique culture of all kinds of tea and the special needs.