Violet Crown Gu Shu Purple-Leaf Fuzhuan Red Tea (紫金砖, Zǐ Jīn Zhuān, "Violet Gold Brick") - As you may know, although most tea plants are green, some of them are purple. Sometimes, those purple plants survive for a long time and become what we call Gu Shu Cha, or Ancient Tree Tea. Sometimes, people pick those ancient purple plants and process the leaves as a Yunnan Sun-Dried red tea. And sometimes, but only rarely, do people take that ancient purple sun-dried red tea and turn it into a Fuzhuan heicha by inoculating it with Eurotium cristatum, the "golden flower" mold, and pressing it into a brick. This beautiful brick is from 2023 and should only get richer and more potent with age. It has some of the most prolific Jīn Huā (金花, "Golden Flower") mold that we've seen in any Fu-style tea.
The resulting ancient-tree purple tea straddles the categories of red tea (oxidized tea) and heicha (fermented tea). It has the sweet, juicy character of a red tea but with more bass. Tasting notes amaretto, marzipan and maraschino cherry. A tea bar consensus described the tea as an almond shorbread cookie with a half a maraschino cherry stuck on with a little blop of white frosting.
