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Tea leaf from Ya'an, Sichuan

Ya'an Tibetan tea / zangcha (Sichuan southern-route border dark tea)藏茶

Sichuan dark tea, made from fresh leaves and mature branches, is piled either wet, as rolled leaf at about 60 % moisture, or dry, as sun-dried or baked leaf below 30 %. The pile heats to 45–71 °C and is turned three or four times over about a month while heat-loving moulds and yeasts change it. It is then pressed into bricks and stored for years.

Fully documentedTea leaf13 months – 10 years

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedFactory process with no published recipe amounts.
Rolled fresh leaf (wet piling) or sun-dried or baked green leaf (dry piling)[chen2025]
WaterAdded as needed during piling to hold the pile's solids at 65–75 %[yan2021]
Starterspontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 13 months – 10 years

Start
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What changes: The leaves are heated and rolled, or dried in the sun or an oven

Step 1 of 4
Kill-green and roll (wet route), or sun-dry or bake the green leaf (dry route)
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Moulds
Yeasts
Debaryomyces
Aspergillus
Candida

Output: rolled wet leaf or dry green leaf.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Sichuan dark tea, made from fresh leaves and mature branches, is piled either wet, as rolled leaf at about 60 % moisture, or dry, as sun-dried or baked leaf below 30 %. The pile heats to 45–71 °C and is turned three or four times over about a month while heat-loving moulds and yeasts change it. It is then pressed into bricks and stored for years. Made in 4 steps over 13 months – 10 years. The longest step, age, takes 12 months – 10 years (Zhu C 2022). Aspergillus and Rhizomucor do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step12 months – 10 yearsReported[zhu2022]Age
Temperature45–71 °CMeasured[yan2021]Pile and turn (wo dui)

What makes this one different

Ya'an Tibetan tea is piled for about a month, far longer than the half-day Hunan primary pile, and the pile held 45–71 °C in one study. It is made two ways, from wet rolled leaf or from dry leaf, and the two piles are led by different moulds.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Wet-piled Tibetan teaRolled leaf piled at about 60 % moisture; Rhizomucor leads.
  • Dry-piled Tibetan teaSun-dried or baked leaf piled below 30 % moisture; Aspergillus leads.
  • Bacillus licheniformis intensive fermentation (2024, experimental)Tea inoculated with B. licheniformis and held at 37 °C for 2 days, 50 °C for days 3 and 4, and 65 °C for days 5–7.

Safety

In one Ya'an factory's pile, a 2022 metagenome study found Klebsiella at 67.7 % relative abundance 15 cm below the surface and 1.1 % at 50 cm. It notes that certain Klebsiella species are pathogenic and suggests high temperature could keep it down. It sampled the pile mid-fermentation, not the finished tea. A 2024 study found opportunistic pathogens in the air of a pile-fermentation plant, some also in piled tea. It says the health hazards need more research and recommends protective clothing and goggles for workers.

Hazards the sources name: Klebsiella in the pile centre (67.7 % relative abundance in the metagenome at 15 cm below the pile surface, 1.1 % at 50 cm); the study notes that certain Klebsiella species are pathogenic and suggests that high temperature could keep its abundance down.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Tibetan tea has a history of over 1,300 years (Zhu 2024). Sichuan south-road dark tea is made only around Ya'an and a popular drink among the Tibetan communities of southwest China (Zou 2022).

  1. [yan2021] Yan K., Abbas M., Meng L. et al. 2021, Analysis of the fungal diversity and community structure in Sichuan dark tea during pile-fermentation, Frontiers in Microbiology 12:706714paper
  2. [chen2025] Chen S., Zhang M., Luo S. et al. 2025, Multi-omics analysis reveals the sensory quality and fungal communities of Tibetan teas produced by wet- and dry-piling fermentation, Food Research International 115690 (abstract via Europe PMC)paper
  3. [liu2024] Liu M., Li X., Li Y., Zou Y. 2024, Insights into the airborne microorganisms in a Sichuan south-road dark tea pile fermentation plant during production, Frontiers in Microbiology 15:1439133paper
  4. [zou2022] Zou Y. et al. 2022, Microbial community analysis in Sichuan south-road dark tea piled center at pile-fermentation metaphase, Frontiers in Microbiology 13:930477paper
  5. [zhu2022] Zhu C., Yang Z., He L. et al. 2022, The longer the storage time, the higher the price, the better the quality? A 1H-NMR based metabolomic investigation of aged Ya'an Tibetan tea, Foods 11:2986paper
  6. [zhu2024] Zhu H. et al. 2024, Bacillus licheniformis-based intensive fermentation of Tibetan tea improved its bioactive compounds and reinforced the intestinal barrier in mice, Frontiers in Microbiology 15:1376757paper