Purple Moonlight Tea Coin (紫娟白幣 Zǐ Juān Bái Bì, "Purple Grace White Tea Coin") - In 2018 we asked Nannuo mountain tea farmer Li Shulin to make Moonlight White - the sun-dried Yunnanese white tea known for its large buds and leaves - out of the Zǐ Juān 紫娟 (“Purple Grace”) cultivar. Zǐ Juān Chá was bred from the naturally-occurring purple tea plants of Nannuo mountain, Zǐ Yá 紫芽 ("Purple Bud"), known as eventually yielding a particularly purple plant high in the blue/purple pigments anthocyanins that give the naturally-occurring mutant Zǐ Yá its distinctive hue. While the naturally-occuring Zǐ Yá leaves have a heterogeneous appearance, generally darker than normal “green” Sheng Pu'er, the Zǐ Juān leaves, bred for their pigment concentration, have a uniform blue-green color and yield a beautiful and remarkable liquor ranging from purple to pink when processed into Sheng Pu'er (Purple Grace). We wanted to see what would happen if it were sun dried - allowing the plant pigments to remain unaltered by the cooking process, Shā Qīng 殺青 ("Kill the Green"), applied to Sheng Pu'er. When we visited in 2019, Li had a surprise for us - he had produced batches of Moonlight White using both Zǐ Juān 紫娟 (“Purple Grace”) cultivar and Zǐ Yá 紫芽 ("Purple Bud") seed-propagated plants. We call the Zǐ Juān Moonlight White “Purple Moonlight”, and as is the case with Sheng Pu'er, it produces a more noticeably purple brew than its mutant ancestors, tending more towards a pale pink than the gemstone purple of Sheng Pu'er. Its flavor is soft and has the sweet tang associated with purpleness in all its forms. The fragrance carries distant notes of cranberry skin on the exhale, while the leaves have a rich floral-honey profile.
This standard size tea coin includes 7g of pressed tea. The base color of the wrapper is tan, indicating that it is a White Tea. The bat is violet, indicating that this tea is made from Zǐ Juān 紫娟 ("Purple Grace") leaves.
1 Review
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Probably amazing
Unfortunately my electric water kettle had a major malfunction as I was brewing this tea.. ? As the tea was opening up enjoyed the flavor even though it was still very mild. Around the third or fourth steep my kettle had a meltdown and I didn't notice until after pouring AWFUL tasting water over the leaves. As I was pouring this thick white smoke was coming from the bottom of my kettle. Even using a different method of brewing, the flavor of that one pour of foul water ruined the leaves. As this coin came in the sample/mystery coin tube, it was the only bit of this tea I've ever had. I kept brewing steep after steep hoping the flavor would come back and although the tea OBVIOUSLY would have gone close to 20 steeps or more using my usual method, the burnt plastic smell of the kettle water never went away ?? I want to try this again but it's now at the back of a very long line on my wishlist.
