Abstract: Five different kinds of Fu tea were produced from oolong tea (Dahongpao), black tea, green tea, and tea leaves used for making two kinds of dark tea, Tianjian tea and Jinxiangyi brick tea, by fungal fermentation in a loose state. ‘Golden Floral’ fungi isolated from these Fu teas showed morphological differences. Further differences were investigated by microbiological methods. The isolated fungi were systematically identified by morphology and DNA sequence analysis. Meanwhile, the aflatoxin producing ability of these isolates was determined by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)-triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry. The results revealed that all the ‘Golden Floral’ fungi isolated were assigned to the same species and they were not different from the initial inoculum, which were classified as Eurotium cristatum in the Eumycota genus in the Eurotiaceae family in the Eurotiales order in the Euascomycetes subclass in the Ascomycetes class in the Eumycota phylum and its anamorph was identified as Aspergillus spiculosus Blaser. And the mass spectral data showed that AFB1, AFB2, AFG1 and AFG2 were not detected, indicating that the ‘Golden Floral’ fungi are not able to produce aflatoxins.

Key words: Fu tea, fungal fermentation of tea in a loose state, ‘Golden Floral’ fungi, identification, Eurotium cristatum, aflatoxin