In the face of such a large market of Ampelopsis Tea, illegal merchants fabricate various lies to make people believe that they sale original and pure Ampelopsis Tea. However, the products they sale are not the real Zhangjiajie Ampelopsis Tea to a great extent. Therefore, how to distinguish real and fake Ampelopsis Tea?
Distinguish the original plant
Most of the original plants used in the fake Ampelopsis Tea are “close relatives” of Zhangjiajie Ampelopsis Tea, which are difficult for consumers to distinguish because of their similar appearance. Genuine Zhangjiajie Ampelopsis Tea: the leaf is very thin and tender. It is a tripinnate leaf. The edge of the leaf is small and serrated. There are tendrils between leaves, just like dragon’s beard.
Ampelopsis japonica: its exterior is covered with hoarfrost, feels rough. Its stalk is red and internodes are bit big.
Guangdong Ampelopsis: the leaf feels smooth. The leaf blade is not serrate and has no forks.
Ampelopsis megalophylla: the leaf is fleshy and the leaf vein is obvious. Internodes are bit red. The leaf blade is a little serrate and has no forks.
Distinguish the real and fake dry tea by its hoarfrost
The way consumers usually identify Ampelopsis Tea in the market is to recognize the hoarfrost on the surface of the tea, namely “white mold”. Genuine Zhangjiajie Ampelopsis Tea: very clean, black and white, consistent shape. If you look at the leaf carefully, you will find that there are small white spots in every leaf and they have uniform size and color. If you smell the tea, there is a clear aroma of tea.
Fake Ampelopsis Tea: the leaf is bigger, usually green and yellow. The tea is moldy. Teas have been processed with special technique that the surface of the tea has hoarfrost, but if you spread them out and search carefully, you can find some mildew, foreign matters and parasites. They do not smell like tea, but moldy.
Smell the aroma, observe the color of tea soup, have a taste
We can figure out the genuine and sham tea more intuitively through three points after making Zhangjiajie Ampelopsis Tea with boiling water. The genuine Ampelopsis Tea: the liquor color is bright green or orange-yellow, like the leaflet, pure and clean. Filtering out the tea, the tea soup is bright and clean, and it is hardly to see any impurities. It has a fragrant smell and strong sweet flavor after taste. The fake Ampelopsis Tea: the tea soup is black and muddy, like the soup of traditional Chinese medicine and you can see some white spots vaguely. After tasting the tea soup of fake Ampelopsis Tea, the tip of the tongue is slightly astringent, the bitter taste is very strong, and the sweetness is weak.
Pay attention to the bottom of the tea
If you observe carefully the tea dregs, you can also recognize the real and fake. Genuine Ampelopsis Tea: the tea dregs, even the old tea, are thin and tender, and the hoarfrost on the surface is fine and even. Put them under your nose and you can smell the fragrance of tea leaves. Fake Ampelopsis Tea: the color of tea dregs is deep. The leaf vein is obvious and the leaf is thick. White spots on the surface of the tea would become big moldy substances and they smell damp and musty.
Totally different function
Real Ampelopsis Tea is rich in bioflavonoids, 17 kinds of amino acids, 14 kinds of trace elements. If people drink it for a long time, it can enhance immune system, improve human functioning and it also has the effects of lowering blood pressure and fat, moisturizing skin, nourishing lungs, curing pharyngitis, reducing deficiency fire to help digestion, anti-alcohol and liver-protection, etc.
Fake Ampelopsis Tea fabricates hoarfrost through moldy additives with lots of bacteria. If a person drinks three cups every day, it is equally that there are three times for him to absorb bacteria straightly. Lots of bacteria go into human body, live on the digestive wall, reproduce massively and gradually influence the normal functions of human body. The initial symptoms are nausea, vomiting and loose bowels, later, the symptoms are gastric ulcer, intestinal disease, and severe situation even may cause organ necrosis.
The only place of origin
The reason why Zhangjiajie Ampelopsis Tea has such good medicinal value is closely related to its growth environment, which must meet the four unique conditions of sunshine, water, climate and uncontaminated soil. Therefore, only the tea growing in the Zhangjiajie mountain region of 800-1500 meters above sea level is the real Zhangjiajie Ampelopsis Tea.