Can I still drink Pu'er tea when it's moldy? A netizen asked: 'I'm in Jiangsu. It's very humid. The quilts are easy to grow moldy. Pu'er tea also grows moldy. It's a white layer. It's like growing hair. I brush it with a toothbrush and there's no smell. Can I still drink it? "
In response to this problem, I have also discussed with many tea guests and friends. Some of them say that they can't drink it. Some of them say that it's normal for Pu'er tea to get mildewy. Here I want to say that if it gets mildewy, it's better not to drink it. It's not cost-effective to drink it for a little bit of tea. There's no need to take this risk. However, you can brush the mildewed tea gently with a toothbrush and put it in the room for decoration It's good, too.
Pu'er tea needs a dry environment. It's better not to let it get moldy, or it will lose its own value! You can smell it or soak it to see if it has moldy taste. Generally, Pu'er tea has stale taste, but it's different from moldy taste. The four key points of selecting Pu'er tea are 'clear, pure, upright and Qi':
The first is to smell the taste of Pu'er tea. No matter how ripe, old and new, good or bad, shape or price, the first thing is to smell the tea. After aging and fermentation, Pu'er tea will certainly have the aging taste, but there should be no musty taste. Musty taste represents that the storage space is affected by damp or too humid, and is not ventilated. The so-called old but not moldy, the old taste will dissipate with the heat when making tea, and the moldy taste is the smell emitted from the bad quality of tea and the damp from inside to outside;
Second, it is to identify the color. Before brewing, smell the tea to see if it is clear (no peculiar smell or odor), and then bubble it to see. When Pu'er tea is stored in a normal environment, even if it is kept for 30 or 50 years, or even 100 years, the color of tea (tea soup) will never turn black or produce strange taste;
Third, Pu'er is stored in a clean and ventilated environment;
Fourth, tea is very able to absorb the taste of the nearby, the tea gas can judge the aging environment and oxidation time of tea.
It is said that if it is white hair, Pu'er tea cream has its unique aging cycle. Theoretically, the time is about 60 years. After the transformation of the inner substance, the quality of the tea paste over the aging period decreased with the deterioration of the crystal water. The paste also produces weathering and mildew.
If you think it's a pity to drink, you can't just drink it from the perspective of hygiene and physicochemical. Because of the moldy Pu'er tea, there may be carcinogenic aflatoxin. If you really can't bear it, you should also look at the degree of mildew. If it's mildly moldy, you can brush it off, blow it with an electric hair dryer, or put it outside in the sun, wash it as much as possible when brewing, so as to get rid of some moldy taste and reduce some harmful substances. When drinking, see if there is any peculiar smell. If there is, don't drink it.