Koji-Fermented Tea: Mori-machi Dark Tea

Quite and interesting one here. At Den's Tea, we carry a Japanese tea I do not see too much on the market. It is actually a Japanese dark tea that we're calling our Mori-machi Dark Tea.

The word "dark" is used as an adjective to describe teas as fermented. The art of fermenting tea, really, is probably as old as the process of making tea itself. While various parts provinces of China have a long history of fermenting their tea (for example, shu pu'erh from Yunnan, China) Japan also has a lesser-known history of fermenting tea. 

This tea in particular is fermented with kuro-koji. Kuro-koji is usually used to make Japanese alcohols such as sake. However here we use it to ferment tea.

If you are familiar with a fermented tea, you might expect the taste to be a strong earthy flavor that you experienced with old aged Pu-erh however our Mori-machi Dark Tea has a toasty flavor with a hint of fresh greenish flavor and a little bit of a sour taste from the fermentation. I also noticed a bit of a salty or savory note as well. Note that it does not contain alcohol even though it was fermented with a Sake fermentation method.

We hope you all get to try some!