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Tea leaf from Jangheung, South Jeolla, Korea

Doncha / cheongtaejeon (Jangheung coin-shaped post-fermented tea)돈차

Wild tea leaves picked in spring rest for twelve hours, are steamed for about five minutes, pounded in a mortar and shaped into round cakes with a hole in the middle, like old coins. After seven to ten days of drying the coins ferment slowly in clay pots for at least six months, and they are toasted over a low flame before brewing.

Fully documentedTea leaf6.2 months – 20 years

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedArtisanal handwork; the sources give no batch size.
Wild tea leavesHand-picked in spring[slowfood]

Total time across the recorded steps: 6.2 months – 20 years

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Picked tea leaves rest for twelve hours

Step 1 of 6
Let the leaves rest after picking
Time
12 h
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

Output: rested leaves.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Wild tea leaves picked in spring rest for twelve hours, are steamed for about five minutes, pounded in a mortar and shaped into round cakes with a hole in the middle, like old coins. After seven to ten days of drying the coins ferment slowly in clay pots for at least six months, and they are toasted over a low flame before brewing. Made in 6 steps over 6.2 months – 20 years. The longest step, ferment in clay pots, takes 6 months – 20 years (Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity). Pantoea and Klebsiella oxytoca and Bacilli do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step6 months – 20 yearsReported[slowfood]Ferment in clay pots

What makes this one different

The studies call Jangheung's the only surviving don-cha (coin tea) culture in the world. The leaves are steamed rather than pan-fired, pressed into coins and left to ferment slowly in storage, like an aged cake tea, not soured in a sealed vessel like lahpet or Awa-bancha.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Starter-fermented cheongtaejeon (experimental)Fermented with Lactobacillus plantarum CHO25, alone or with Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Bacillus amyloliquefaciens; the single-starter tea scored best for aroma.

Safety

Slow Food says the coin is toasted on a brass plate over a low flame before brewing, which sterilises the leaf, and is then steeped in boiling water for about ten minutes. No study we read tested this.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

The first evidence of doncha dates to the founding of Borim temple in Jangheung in 821. Tea drinking declined from the 1930s, and a Slow Food Presidium was launched in 2014 with five small producers (Slow Food Foundation).

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
Temperature, salt and pH
The sources we found give no temperature, salt or pH figure for any of its steps.
  1. [kim2017] Kim B.-H., Jang J.-O., Kang Z., Joa J.H., Moon D.-G. 2017, The microbial diversity analysis of the Korea traditional post-fermented tea (Chungtaejeon), Korean Journal of Microbiology 53(3):170–179, doi 10.7845/kjm.2017.7049 (abstract)paper
  2. [parkcho] Park J.-S., Cho J.-I., 발효차 청태전 제조용 미생물의 분리 (Isolation of microorganisms for making the fermented tea Chungtaejeon), Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture 26(2) (abstract)paper
  3. [slowfood] Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, Don Tea, Slow Food Presidium (South Korea)web
  4. [s1] Korean Wikipedia, 돈차 (names and history outline), read 2026-10-16wiki