Purple Needle Black Tea of Jing Mai Mountain

A belated pull from Arby’s homemade advent! I was craving a straight black tea but didn’t want anything too malty or strong… this really fits the bill! Not sure what year my sample is from, but it’s pleasant: Light and just a little bit tart, with no big flavor notes except something faintly floral. There’s a tiiiny smidge of soapiness toward the end.

Now back to rereading Jane Eyre. :)

Sweetish and gently floral – it’s a milder tea than I’d anticipated. I tried the March 2020 harvest version. The floral taste isn’t overly flowery, if that makes any sense; it reminds me a bit of violets, though possibly that’s partly because I had purple on the mind on account of this being a purple tea. The flavour has a small amount of bitterness, but this mainly just balances the other tastes and doesn’t stand out much on its own. It’s quite good overall!

This is a tea with a few reviews scattered throughout Steepster among the separate entries for each harvest so there is no critical mass in one place. So I created a harvest-neutral entry that, hopefully, will over time acquire enough reviews to provide useful guidance to those contemplating ordering it.

It is a gentle and delicate black tea. The aromas are vaguely floral and the taste is malty, a bit astringent and sweet: grapes, sugarcane, lime, rose petals. It is quite a unique taste and more delicate than many other purple teas I have tried. I mostly drink it Western but it also steeps well gongfu: when prepared that way it comes out somewhat along the lines of light, floral Taiwan oolongs.