It’s been a while since I have had a good, solid Purple Tea. Dragon Blood Zi Juan Purple Tea 2015 Spring Lin Cang from Bitterleaf is a PRIME example of an excellent one!
Dragon Blood Zi Juan Purple Tea 2015 Spring Lin Cang from Bitterleaf has a grey-purple color leaf look to it that are stiff and pressed – of course – on infused the leaves loosen up and swim free. The flavor of this tea is slightly vegetal, a tad sweet, and a mellow pu-erh type flavor all rolled into one.
I’m happy to see more and more purple teas on the market. I’m looking forward to the different qualities, different offerings, and to see if companies out there will start flavoring purple tea. Stand alone – Dragon Blood Zi Juan Purple Tea 2015 Spring Lin Cang from Bitterleaf – is one of the best tasting ones I have had to date.
Here’s the scoop:
Leaf Type: Purple Tea
Where to Buy: Bitterleaf
Tea Description:
Our Dragon Blood Zi Juan Purple is sourced from a variety of tea that naturally has higher levels of anthocyanin. This not only gives the tea a purple colour, but gives it higher antioxidant properties which can promote cardiovascular health. Aside from the heralded health benefits, this is a unique tea, with a slight vegetal taste leading to a smoky sweetness. Processed similarly to a raw Puer, this tea can be stored for later or enjoyed now.
We can’t make any verifiable claims about whether or not this tea can or can’t give you super powers, so it’s best to just try for yourself.
Click here for more information about this tea and brewing instructions.
Our Dragon Blood 2015 Zi Juan Purple tea is a truly unique offering with an almost indescribable taste. It’s perhaps easiest to say that “it tastes like purple tea” – in other words, you just have to try it for yourself!
This Lin Cang area spring tea has been processed and pressed into cakes, similarly to how raw Puer is, imparting a slight vegetal, raw Puer taste, with some mild astringency. This is about the extent of its overlap with raw Puer though, as the bulk of its character is a complex, “purple tea” flavor, with unique hints of smoky sweetness that comes out more and more with each infusion.
Purple tea is often cited for its health benefits. These health benefits, as well as its dark purple colour, are due to higher levels of anthocyanin found in the tea. This in turn results in higher antioxidant activity and can promote cardiovascular health by way of anti-inflammatory properties and aiding in the reduction of blood pressure, lipid and blood sugar levels.* By undergoing minimal processing (similar to raw Puer), our Zi Juan purple tea optimizes these benefits. This is in contrast to purple teas that are processed using a black tea method (fully oxidized), which affects the chemical makeup of the tea and nullifies the positive effects of the high anthocyanin levels.
This tea brews up a beautiful light purple colour. Using additional leaves for a strong brew will yield a deeper purple soup, however the taste will be quite strong by that point, so we do not recommend brewing past the point of a light purple colour.
* With that said, we’re not doctors and are not qualified to make definitive claims (nor be held responsible) regarding the health benefits of this tea. Simply drinking this tea will not miraculously counteract the effects of washing down a bag of Doritos with Pepsi during a 10 hour Netflix marathon. This tea does, however, go well with a healthy diet and exercise.
Source:
This tea comes to us by way of the previous head of production and quality inspection with the formerly government owned Lin Cang Tea Factory. He now produces his own teas and has been able to work with us to provide this Lin Cang Zi Juan purple tea (as well as our 2015 Feng Qing Dian Hong, 2015 Fall Bing Dao and 2015 Spring Bang Dong raw Puer.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here.
