This tea has wonderful and unusual tones of blue fruits (Loganberry, blackcurrants and concord grapes), tempered by honey, cocoa and an unusual tone of musk. I was attracted to this tea by its description promissing tones of rum and chocolate along with the fruit. The chocolate and fruit are definitely there. The rum is mildly apparent in a kind of boozy sugar cane tone that I found in one steep.
This was my first purple tea, so at first I was careful with temperature because I've been told they can be astringent but I have found that this tea is fairly forgiving so I have used water in the upper 90°C on it before. What you do need to be careful of is the amount of leaf you use. This is one of those teas that has long, wiry loosely folded leaves and it is easy to under leaf it. I made sure to cover the bottom of my Gaiwan with it. The leaves themselves are almost black and smell of chocolate and fruit, but mainly fruit.
I brewed this tea 6 times this time. The first four ( 30,50,90,&120s) had a pretty consistent flavour profile of blue fruits, honey, cocoa, musk, and cream, with sugar cane and fruit in the aftertaste and an occasional deeper tone to the honey. Starchy notes appeared in these steeps that ranged from faint grain notes to white potato. The tea has a light walnut colour and a creamy texture in the mouth.
The later steeps (170, & 240s) were still fairly rich in flavour but the musk notes were fading and the other tones mellowed and mixed with an artichoke note.
Altogether I have grown quite fond of this tea when I want something with a complex, creamy and fruity nature.
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