Talk:Fermented tea

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Merger proposal
I propose that Dark tea be merged into Fermented tea. The two articles describe the same class of teas, namely fermented teas, which is well described by the name of the article and the former article has less details in the tea types than the latter (albeit more citations). Dark tea also has a lot of overlap that may actually belong in Pu-er tea. The merge should be relatively simple due to the size of the two articles. -- Sjschen (talk) 13:35, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Merge to "dark tea" - the articles state that pu-erh is a variety of dark tea, which in turn is a category of fermented tea. That said, both fermented tea and dark tea currently link to the same articles in other languages, and there isn't really enough information in either article to stand on its own, so a merge seems wise, even if the two terms aren't identical in meaning. Google Trends indicates that "dark tea" is more commonly used, and Google Ngrams also indicates a slight preference for that term in print. In addition, the term "fermentation" is sometimes conflated with "oxidation" in the tea industry, so "dark tea" would appear to be a more common and precise title. Ibadibam (talk) 17:39, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm okay with either merge direction. If nobody else voices in with this, perhaps you can go ahead with the processing of merging fermented tea (formerly post-fermented tea) with dark tea. -- Sjschen (talk) 15:55, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Merge - I'm not convinced by the google numbers cited above supporting that "dark tea" is the common name, because "dark" is a just a common English word that is often used in combination with "tea", but usually not referring to the topic of the article. "Fermented" suffers from a similar problem. Both titles are used to refer to the topic and neither is perfect, but since the article has to have one and only one title, I vote for "dark tea". Baidu baike suggests that dark tea and the subject of this article, what's called "后发酵茶" in Chinese, are one and the same. Colloquially it's called "黑茶" (pretty consistently translated as "dark tea") and when you need to emphasize the different oxidation levels the different tea categories undergo you can call it "后发酵茶" (often translated as "Post-fermented tea"). This is similar to the difference between terms like "fully oxidized/fermented tea" (全发酵茶）, and "black tea" (红茶), the two terms refer to the same topic. Baidu Baike isn't the word of god, my understanding of it could be wrong, and I'm not a wannabe expert on this topic, so correct me if I'm wrong in thinking that the category (post-)fermented tea includes all of the category dark tea and nothing else. I'd be in favor of merging into "dark tea" since I think it is closest to common English. Also if we aren't going to use the weird but common Chinese translation "post-fermented" tea, but simply "fermented tea" then I feel that we've got a title that is confusingly imprecise. I believe the shorter "fermented tea" is at least as often used to refer to black and oolong tea as well as the delicious and trendy kombucha. Do a google search and see what comes up that isn't this article. - Metal lunchbox (talk) 17:02, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Merge to Fermented tea - The Google ngrams and tends numbers given by are very poor measures for this subject. The phrase, dark tea is used in a very large number of cases when talking about a wide veriety of subjects completely unrelated to fermented tea. Here is my google books search for "dark tea". For example, Douglas Adam's book The long dark tea-time of the sole comes up allot. Often it is used just to describe tea with a dark colour or tea-bushes with a dark colour rather than a variety of tea. One instance I found was refering to a medical condition which causes, "strong dark tea coloured urine." By contrast, a Google books search for "fermented tea" returned a list that was consistently on target though occasionally referring to red tea as fermented tea. The articles Dark tea and Fermented tea do seem to be about the same thing under different names and so should be merged. Rincewind42 (talk) 01:27, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I recommend you take a closer look at the google book search you cite. Of the ten results that pop up all only one of them appears to refer to the topic of this article. All of them use "fermented tea" to refer to tea having undergone oxidation, contrasting with green tea. One of them in the middle is talking about pu-er tea. The great majority of search results are like this. As I mentioned above and as you mention, "dark tea" has the same problem, because dark and tea are common words commonly used together. The reality of the situation is that the only word which consistently refers to this topic more than other topics is "post-fermented tea", a name which no one here appears to like. I think its the most accurate, but "dark tea" is more colloquial. between "Dark tea" and "fermented tea" it appears obvious to me which is better, because the difference between "dark, tea-coloured urine" and the topic of this article is revealed in context. The difference between "fermented tea" referring to black tea and "fermented tea" referring to the teas mentioned in this article is far from obvious. Now that I see just how hard it is to find the topic by searching "dark tea", I'm starting to prefer "post-fermented tea". - Metal lunchbox (talk) 03:34, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
 * If you read my statement above, I did note that "fermented tea" referred to red tea in some of the articles. I have nothing against "post-fermented tea" for dark tea, though I would need to see evidence that that was the common name even if technically correct. Ambiguity in the name among sources isn't a reason to reject the evidence of those sources. It is only a reason to reject the automated tally of a Google ngram or trend. Wikipedia's Common Names guideline means that a name may have to be used even if it is technically incorrect. It will really require someone to work through more than just the first 10 results on the Google books search. Rincewind42 (talk) 14:49, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh, I guess by "red tea" you meant "black tea" then? I misunderstood. Naming guidelines also encourage avoiding ambiguity, and "post-fermented" is the only name that isn't at all ambiguous. It's not clear to me what the common name in English is for this topic and figuring it out isn't an exact science, but here's what I've found to support the idea that post-fermented tea is the common name:
 * China.org.cn - Post-fermented tea "Post-fermented tea, known in China as "hei cha,"
 * Hong Kong Museum of Tea Ware "green tea, which is non-fermented, lives a much shorter lifespan than the post-fermented Pu'er tea"
 * Frommers China "and Pu'er tea, a post-fermented tea found in Yunnan."
 * So that's pretty weak, right? so let's forget about ambiguity for a moment and see if one of these other names is the common name for this topic. Since counting google hits is pretty much useless, it's pretty subjective. A good way to get more hits which actually refer to the topic are to include "pu'er" in your search, since that's the archetypical dark tea. You can find plenty of popular books with proper editors using any of the three terms. My impression is that there just isn't a common name for it. Makes me think we should consider other criteria, like simplicity and resolving ambiguity. Unless we can form a consensus about the name, it would be proper to merge it into "fermented tea" (my least favorite name), basically preserving status quo. That means I'm going to stop arguing about titles now. - Metal lunchbox (talk) 16:59, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

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Rename proposal
The current page is the merging of two pages, resulting in the choice of Fermented tea as the English name of the category of tea called Heicha 黑茶 in Chinese and the closing of the discussion on its denomination in August 2014.

I hereby propose to reopen the discussion, taking into consideration the following points:

1) Heicha 黑茶 is one of the six basic categories of tea of the classification system devised in China in the 1970s and thereafter adopted as a standard. This system groups the different varieties of tea according to some specific shared key steps in the curing processes and names them with color terms: Lücha 绿茶, Hongcha 红茶, Huangcha 黄茶, Baicha 白茶, Qingcha 青茶, Heicha 黑茶.

2) The system uses color labels consistently and works well in Chinese (notwithstanding the congenital incoherency of its basic principles: it uses colours terms – which refer to a defined visual character – to name processes that do not necessarily and univocally lead to defined colours).

3) The color labels of the Chinese classification cannot be straightforwardly applied to English. The long established term "black tea" (and any equivalent in all other European languages, which would represent the direct translation of heicha) is applied to the category of tea that in Chinese is called hongcha 紅茶 "red tea" (note that the use of the English term "black tea" actually precedes any textual reference to hongcha in Chinese sources and most likely the invention of hongcha itself: Huang, Hsing Tsung 2000. "Tea Processing and Use." In Science and Civilization in China. Vol. 6: Biology and Biological Technology. Pt. 5: Fermentations and Food Science, pp. 503–570)

4) In China the term wulongcha 烏龍茶 (from which the English word "oolong" comes) was and still is widely used as a synonymous of qingcha 青茶

5) Probably considering points 3) and 4), the Chinese standard GB/T 30766-2014 (茶叶分类 Classification of tea, issued on June 9th 2014) has formally adopted the following Chinese and English nomenclature for the six basic categories of tea:
 * Lücha 绿茶 Green tea
 * Hongcha 红茶 Black tea
 * Huangcha 黄茶 Yellow tea
 * Baicha 白茶 White tea
 * Wulongcha 乌龙茶 Oolong tea
 * Heicha 黑茶 Dark tea

6) From this, we can see that since October 2014 (when GB/T 30766-2014 was implemented) "dark tea" is the official standard English translation of heicha used in China (where substantially all heicha are produced).

7) Besides this, we should also observe that the term "dark tea" appears in academic articles recently published in various international scientific journals (here are a few examples): 1, 2, 3, 4

Given the above information, I would like to highlight some problems with the use of "Fermented tea” in tea classification, many of which were actually already touched upon by some other users in 2014:

8) As reported in the dedicated Wikipedia page, the English term Fermentation” can have different interpretations: Below are some definitions of fermentation. They range from informal, general usages to more scientific definitions.  1. Preservation methods for food via microorganisms (general use). 2. Any large-scale microbial process occurring with or without air (common definition used in industry). 3. Any process that produces alcoholic beverages or acidic dairy products (general use). 4. Any energy-releasing metabolic process that takes place only under anaerobic conditions (somewhat scientific). 5. Any metabolic process that releases energy from a sugar or other organic molecule, does not require oxygen or an electron transport system, and uses an organic molecule as the final electron acceptor (most scientific).

9) According to the above passage, we can see that the microbial ripening of heicha is actually consistent with the "common definition" of fermentation used in industry, even if it does not actually fit the "most scientific" definition. We can then observe that enzymatic oxidation processes – such as the browning of black and oolong tea – do not properly fall with the scope of these definitions.

10) However, it is well known that the term “fermentation” (as well as its Chinese equivalent fajiao 發酵) is historically and presently used in tea industry to describe the enzymatic oxidation of black and oolong tea.

11) Besides this, this costumery and “unscientific" use of fermentation is also found in scholarly articles about tea processing published in international scientific journals (here some examples): 1, 2, 3, 4

12) Last but not least, we also ought to reckon the prescribed use of "fermented tea" to refer to black tea in international trade terminology: the Harmonized System coding of World Customs Organization, lists "black fermented tea and other partly fermented tea” under the code 090240. This is just how tea is labeled and shipped all around the world.

13) So, no matter how wrong it might be, the customary use of “fermented tea” for black tea is well-established, accepted in scientific articles, and even adopted in international normative texts. Any claim for an alternative use of the term must deal and compromise with this undeniable fact.

14) The creation of the Chinese term houfajiao 後發酵 (post-fermentation) to call the processing of heicha moves from these considerations: it meets the need to avoid the ambiguity between the microbial browning carried out after the fixation in processing of this category of tea – which properly deserve the "common definition" of fajiao 發酵 (fermentation) – and the improper but well-established use of the very same term for black and oolong tea enzymatic browning. Accordingly, heicha is also commonly called houfajiao cha 後發酵茶 (post-fermented tea).

To conclude:

- I believe that the use of "fermented tea” for heicha (even if denotatively correct） is misleading and could be a cause for misunderstanding, as it conflicts with the established and current (even if unproper）tea industry terminology; - I reckon that “dark tea” or "post-fermented tea" are to be preferred.

For these reasons:

- I propose to rename the page “Dark tea" and insert "Post-fermented tea" as a "redirect here” page (or the contrary).

- I might also suggest to create a disambiguation page for "Fermented tea”, which points to Dark tea, Kombucha, Lahpet, Goishicha and also to its conventional use for Black tea. --Laozha (talk) 23:27, 1 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Yes, at the very least all these pages should at least link to eachother. It's pretty weird when you want to search for kombucha, but you only remember it's a type of "fermented tea", and the top search result doesn't even mention kombucha. Qvasi (talk) 11:22, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 23 June 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus. One title has a scope problem, and the suggested title also has an apparent scope problem. It is unclear which is better. (closed by non-admin page mover) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 03:02, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Fermented tea → Dark tea – the use of "fermented tea” for heicha (even if denotatively correct）is misleading and could be a cause for misunderstanding, as it conflicts with the established and current tea industry terminology. Laozha (talk) 21:18, 23 June 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 04:35, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support. Fermented tea would include black tea which is explicitly excluded from the scope of this article. However it looks like we need to preserve the edit history of the target for copyleft purposes... not sure how best to do that. Here is a snapshot of it. Andrewa (talk) 23:37, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The least intrusive way for a page mover or admin to do that is to do a round-robin page move so that the redirect and the article switch places. After that, the redirect can be retargeted to the article. With the pageswap script, even that only takes seconds. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 04:34, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's one way... but people who do this usually leave the talk pages in a mess, in my experience. Andrewa (talk) 13:53, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Is there anything further than just making sure the redirect on the talk page gets fixed if there was one beforehand? I haven't seen any issues personally past that. Skarmory   (talk •   contribs)  08:28, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
 * That's probably the issue. I haven't been able to identify exactly what the sequence of events is that causes it. All I know is, when I see a talk page link that is useless, it's almost always the result of a pageswap move, and whenever I have approached the mover to suggest however gently that the link should have been fixed, the response has always been in so many words "I followed the procedures, so there's nothing wrong, go do your homework". So basically I have given up and now just quietly fix them. But that's a lot more work coming in after the fact. Andrewa (talk) 13:20, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose. This would appear to change the scope of the article, excluding the section on pickled tea. Separately, I would prefer not to rely on anecdotal data, but I wonder if naming depends upon the region in this case. I know what fermented tea is and know quite a bit about tea, but (embarrassingly?) I have never heard of "dark tea". Dekimasu
 * Good point but are you sure? I see pickled tea is a redlink, and who says it's not a sort of dark tea? Either way something needs fixing. See my !vote above. Andrewa (talk) 06:02, 3 July 2022 (UTC)