Purple tea is a rare varietal, mutated from the big-leaf varietals of Yunnan, also known as “The tea of three colours”, the tender buds are purple on the branches, the dry leaves are blackish green and then turn green while steeped in boiling water. A well-aged purple tea still has blackish dry leaves, but they no longer appear as green as a younger purple tea in boiling water, instead the steeped leaves show several characteristics of an oxidated tea. If you were not previously informed, you may mistake our 2006 Jinggu Aged Purple Tea for being made in the same process as ripe/Shou Puerh, just as we almost did when we tasted it for the first time.

After being aged for 15 years, this tea no longer has any freshness, nor any astringency. Along with the age there is only the rich sweetness, and the barely detectable bitterness left in the mellow tea soup, with aging aroma, woody scent and ripe fruit note, and with a complexity of mixed flavours between very aged raw/sheng Puerh and light-oxidized ripe/shou Puerh. It is intriguing though, as it gives an illusion of being aged white tea from time to time in some infusions. If you are curious about how it was before being aged, we have a fresh option available on our website, the 2020 Jinggu purple tea dragon ball.