The dry leaves smell very sweet with an undercurrent of sugarcane, malt, and grape juice concentrate. I know purple tea… am I making up the grape smell? I drank through 60 grams to try and prove myself wrong before writing this.
I brewed up 6g in a 120ml gaiwan using 190F water and roughly 30 second steep times ( I dont time my black tea just have a feel for starting at about 15 seconds and by steep 10 I’m at 45 seconds to a minute)
The liquor smells like one of those malt sodas with grape flavoring, quite unique. It has a deep satisfying sweetness of frozen grape concentrate mixed with malt powder. I DO NOT usually like fruity black tea, but the grape isn’t sour or overpowering, it flows smoothly with the malty sweetness. I would compare it to a good Indian breakfast assam very malt forward, exactly what I want in the morning with grape must to keep it interesting. I find that I don’t get as much traditional Jingmai character from this tea. The mouthfeel is smooth with a hint of oil and a lasting sweetness.
I always get about 10 infusions out of this tea with the last infusion at a rolling boil, and the second to last infusion at 200F. The flavor stays with the tea remarkably well, not changing too much or getting markedly weaker.
This is a very unique and delicious tea. It’s not a tea I would want every day, but I want to always have a tin in stock. It satisfies the cravings for a grape tea that I didn’t know I had before trying this. The tea makes me want to experiment with brewing a malt heavy beer with the addition of dark grapes.
Flavors: Grapes, Malt, Sugarcane
