Golden Flower Zangcha

Für Tibeter ist Tea eine Quelle des Lebens wie Luft, Sonne und Essen. Ein Tibetisches Sprichwort besagt "Ein Tag Tee, drei Tage ohne Krankheit".

The tea is harvested by small farming families in the highlands near Ya'an. Ya'an is the starting point of the historic tea route and is considered the gateway to Yunnan and Tibet. In order to be able to transport the tea over the long distance, the Ya'an people developed fermentation processes that are still used today and are among the most difficult processes in tea production. There are 32 different production processes from the region, while one process stands out in particular. This process is used in the production of Golden Flower Zangcha.

Golden Flower Zangcha is a deeply fermented (post-fermented) black tea. Its production is a traditional process, but hardly anyone has mastered its complexity today. Due to the complex, time and temperature-dependent processing steps, it is not possible to produce a sufficiently consistent quality for today's consumers. Today, the production of this traditional tea is therefore controlled and carried out by the largest state tea research institute in Sichuan in compliance with all quality standards. In the first step, the tea is stratified and stored. At the right temperature and humidity, a series of complex metabolic substances and enzymes are produced through microbiological processes. This corresponds to the conventional production of black tea. The tea is then inoculated with special enzymes, moulded and stored at a precisely defined temperature and humidity. During this process, the tea develops the typical small yellow blooms that give the tea its name ‘Golden Flower’. The tea is then dried and stored. The longer the storage time, the more refined the flavour. The maturing period should last at least 3-4 years and can be extended to years and decades. During the final production step, the Golden Flower Zangcha produces the very enzymes for which the tea is known in TCM.

Golden Flower Tibetan Tea (Zangcha) is produced using sustainable cultivation methods and is continuously tested in the laboratory. We have a rather lightly inoculated variant here, in which the properties of the black tea and the properties of the post-fermentation are in a very balanced relationship and make it a unique pleasure.