six teas changed by microbes rather than oxygen
Built as a memo rather than a table: the thing worth hanging it up for reads across the room, with the full reference in smaller type below it.
Three sizes in one archive — from a sheet on the fridge to a poster on the wall.
Shu puerh is made the same way and has a sheet of its own. In China it is these teas that are called black, while our black tea is called red.
In a fu zhuan brick the fungus is grown on purpose. The pressed brick is held in a warm, damp room until small yellow specks appear inside it — the "golden flowers", Eurotium cristatum.
It is the only tea whose grade is judged by eye from a fungus: the brick is broken open and the flowers are checked for how evenly and densely they are scattered across the break. The denser they are, the higher the grade and the dearer the brick.
This is not about looks: the fungus works through some of the compounds that make coarse leaf bitter and astringent, which is why fu zhuan is softer than other pressed teas made from the same material.
Why the numbers can be trusted. Every countable number here is computed from data rather than typed in, and the sheet must pass 5 independent checks before it is allowed to build — how many items there are, the order they come in, and the claim in the highlighted box itself. If one fails, there is no file.
