As cold and flu season is upon us, we wanted to share some of the benefits of consuming fermented teas - including their ability to improve your gut microbiome.
Many of us are familiar with fermented foods like yogurt, kimchi, or sauerkraut. But we often don’t associate Tea with beneficial fermented foods.
Traditional Chinese teas like Hei Cha and Shu Pu’er often undergo an accelerated post-fermentation process to promote the growth of beneficial organisms. These are controlled conditions that require considerable skill to master.
When fermented properly, the tea leaves will contain microorganisms such as Aspergillus, Penicillium, Saccharomyces, Eurotium, and/or other species.
It’s important to remember that humans have always coexisted with bacteria and fungi. And the human body contains trillions of microorganisms that outnumber human cells by 10 to 1.
These organisms can make chemical compounds that immediately impact how the rest of our body functions, including neurotransmitters like serotonin.
It’s also been shown that fermented foods increase microbiota diversity and decrease inflammatory markers.
And compounds like Theabrownin and Gallic Acid present in Shu Pu’er have shown benefits for antiobesity, antimutagenic, antioxidative, antitumor, free radical scavenging, and toxicity suppressing activities.
If you’d like to try some of these fermented teas, check out our catalog below…
Explore our fermented Hei Cha here
Explore our fermented Shu Pu’er here
All of these teas are handpicked and sourced directly from independent tea farmers and tea masters in China.
If you have any questions, just hit reply and let us know.
West China Tea
P.S. Here are a few of our top recommendations: | 
