Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Purple/Green
Where to Buy: What-Cha Tea
Tea Description:
A brilliant and rare tea produced from purple varietal tea plants, with a smoky aroma and taste combined with a wonderful smooth texture.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Wow!
It’s been a long time since I’ve had a tea grown from the purple varietal tea plant, so I was excited to try this Yunnan Zi Juan Purple Varietal Green Tea from What-Cha. And it definitely did not disappoint! This is LOVELY!
The texture is smooth and silky. There is a mild overtone of smokiness with a sweet undertone. There is a delightful fruit note to this tea that evokes thoughts of melon and plums. There are faint vegetal notes that are nicely accented with a buttery tone.
It’s a really delightfully complex tea, reminding me more of an Oolong than of a green tea because of it’s silky smooth texture and its deliciously creamy butter notes. But just as I’m thinking that this is more of an Oolong tea the vegetal notes come through to say, “Hey, I’m green!” In the distance, I’m picking up on some light florals.
With all the amazing complexity of this tea, I decided to steep the leaves a second time to see what more I could discover with these leaves. The second steep is even more flavorful than the first!
The smoky notes have softened somewhat now, and the fruit notes have melded into a unified flavor. The vegetal notes are still there, but they are still faint … and there is still a beautifully creamy butter note to complement those vegetative flavors.
I’m tasting a little more floral notes. These floral tones are moving forward, out of the distance and a little more into focus in the foreground. This tea is still delightfully sweet. With the first cup, I mentioned how this tea reminded me a bit more of an Oolong than a Green … but with this cup, this tastes much more like the green tea that it is.
This is a truly delightful cup of tea. If you resteep it, this becomes two truly delightful cups of tea. And you really should resteep it!
