For those who eat dessert first. Plum candy sweet in fragrance and cup. Light in body. No astringency. Goes down too easy.
Zi Juan (Purple Beauty) is a relatively new cultivar on the market that is most often made into a green tea, but you cannot pass up on this black tea version. Purple leaves and buds are natural mutations in tea plants that happen in various tea growing regions. The high levels of anthocyanin in the leaf give it its purple color. Since the late 1980’s the Purple Beauty cultivar has been propagated by the Menghai Research Center and through further cultivation is now being more widely planted, but the tea is still scarcely available in the US. This particular lot was made in June 2020 from the Menghai region of Yunnan. It’s a 2 leaf and bud pluck and grown at an approximate elevation of 3,000 feet without the use of pesticides. An excellent tea at an excellent price!
Use 1 rounded teaspoon of tea per 8 ounce cup of water at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Steep 3-5 minutes.