Wild Tree Purple Moonlight White Tea from Jinggu

Tea type
White Tea
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Apricot, Bitter, Floral, Fruity, Sweet, Black Currant, Bread, Cannabis, Eucalyptus, Grass, Herbs, Honey, Meat, Medicinal, Oak, Potato, Sage, Sand, Spicy, Spinach, Thick, Thyme, Umami, Mint, Peach, Pine, White Grapes
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Loose Leaf
Caffeine
Not available
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Rasseru
Average preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 1 min, 0 sec 5 g 6 oz / 175 ml

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9 Tasting Notes View all

  • “Spring 2023: Wow, this tea is really different! Has a fruity/strongly cannabis-like aroma to the leaves. The dry leaf smell is very strong and intoxicating when I stick my nose into the bag. The...” Read full tasting note
    95
  • “(Spring 2023 harvest) Woah- heady aromatics. White grape, guava, kiwi and gooseberry nose. Some husk cherry too. Palate is juicy and tart. Unbelievably unique. Though to an extent I don’t find...” Read full tasting note
    89
  • “I tried the April 2020 harvest. Visually, this is a very attractive tea, with fluffy, multicoloured leaves. The dry leaves smell incredibly like apricots. When wet, they still smell like apricots,...” Read full tasting note
    75
  • “My new favourite “Ye Sheng” tea! The dry leaves have an incredibly strong and complex aroma. It is a mix of medicinal, herbal and spicy – lies somewhere close to sage, eucalyptus or tea tree oil....” Read full tasting note
    94

From Yunnan Sourcing

This is a unique tea to be sure. It’s made from Wild Tree Purple varietal tea (ye sheng cha) growing in Jinggu county. The tea grows wild and is only harvested in March. The tea was processed using the same technique used for Yue Guang Bai… after frying, and rolling the tea wilts briefly before put into a long wind tunnel tube where warm is pushed through and gradually halts the oxidation of the tea.

The taste is something unique too. There is alot of complexity, with notes of fruit, flower, sugarcane, and a kind of bitterness that fades quickly. With even a few months of age the bitterness will transform into fruit sweetness with a long lasting after-taste. The tea soup is yellow, and is thick and soupy.

Late March 2016 Harvest

Hong Ni Tan Village mountainous area in Jing Gu County of Simao

About Yunnan Sourcing View company

Company description not available.

9 Tasting Notes

95
113 tasting notes

Spring 2023: Wow, this tea is really different! Has a fruity/strongly cannabis-like aroma to the leaves. The dry leaf smell is very strong and intoxicating when I stick my nose into the bag. The leaves are beautiful, larger-leaf white tea leaves, in varying shades of green. The brewed tea is lighter yellow in color with notes of lychee florals, mint, peach, cannabis, and green grape.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 1 min, 0 sec 5 g 16 OZ / 473 ML
Keemunlover

Color of the dry leaf is fun and unusual, too – Looks like it came out of Willy Wonka’s factory or something.

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89
120 tasting notes

(Spring 2023 harvest) Woah- heady aromatics. White grape, guava, kiwi and gooseberry nose. Some husk cherry too. Palate is juicy and tart. Unbelievably unique. Though to an extent I don’t find myself reaching for it often.

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75
135 tasting notes

I tried the April 2020 harvest. Visually, this is a very attractive tea, with fluffy, multicoloured leaves.

The dry leaves smell incredibly like apricots. When wet, they still smell like apricots, but a little less strongly.

The taste is balanced, mostly fruity but with some floral flavour coming through, and an initial bitterness that quickly fades. The texture is thick and silky. I usually don’t find textures like that in teas with predominantly fruity tastes, and it works really well here. Overall, a very nice tea!

Flavors: Apricot, Bitter, Floral, Fruity, Sweet

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 0 min, 15 sec 5 g 3 OZ / 90 ML

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94
943 tasting notes

My new favourite “Ye Sheng” tea! The dry leaves have an incredibly strong and complex aroma. It is a mix of medicinal, herbal and spicy – lies somewhere close to sage, eucalyptus or tea tree oil. Wet leaves’ smell is even more multilayered. I can smell some grass, roast lamb, sand, wood and honey among many other fleeting scents.

The taste is delicate, crisp and refreshing. It has the characteristic savoury and woody bitterness of the varietal. Other than that I noticed flavours reminiscent of fruits, dumplings, potatoes, flowers, spinach. In the protracted aftertaste, many more aspects come to the fore – thyme, cannabis, minerals, parsnip, plant roots, sourdough bread, black currant and others. There is a very noticeable huigan too.

Body is medium to full, with a thick velvety liquor that induces a slightly tingling sensation on the back of my tongue. For a white tea, the cha qi is significant too, quite caffeine like, but a bit more heady.

All in all, this is a tea that, along with the Feng Qing Hong Cha, suits the characteristics of this varietal the most I think. I definitely want to have a good amount of it in my cupboard.

Flavors: Bitter, Black Currant, Bread, Cannabis, Eucalyptus, Floral, Fruity, Grass, Herbs, Honey, Meat, Medicinal, Oak, Potato, Sage, Sand, Spicy, Spinach, Thick, Thyme, Umami

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 0 min, 30 sec 5 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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87
167 tasting notes

This guy has a bit of buzz and mystique around it. I certainly get it – it definitely is a departure from your typical white tea experience, but after having a few other purple tea experiences, including black and raw pu’erh, the mystique is losing a bit of its magic for me.

From what I’ve experienced, purple tea (this one included), comes with a big whallop of funky fruit flavors, sort of the like what you get with papaya. Funky but sweet.

So, it is delicious. But, it is also STRONG. For me, these purple tea flavors are so strong that they sort of bully the other “standard” flavors of the tea. It’s a little difficult getting past them.

Anyway, as far as white tea is concerned, I think I’ll stick to silver needle. On the other hand, if you’re a fan of peach iced tea, you will definitely dig this tea.
*
Dry leaf – strong fruit – peach cobbler, melon; autumn leaves, a fruity-funkiness you get with some tropical fruit (like papaya), green leaf; hints of malt and nut. In preheated vessel – more dark honey and honeysuckle notes

Smell – almond nuttiness, malt sweetness, wood, peach, fruit funk, black tea blend with milk, hints of cucumber and mint

Taste – milky black tea blend, peach and berry compote, melon, cucumber, raw almond, honeysuckle, potpourri

tanluwils

This one seemed interesting to me too (combo of purple tea cultivar processed like a Moonlight white. But, I think the latter’s characteristics is what got to me. I think that flavor profile is for black tea lovers—and I am not one of them. I am more for the classic Chinese white tea. It’s actually not easy to find very good bai mu dan or silver needle. Folks in the West just haven’t had enough exposure to the good stuff.

apefuzz

I have to say that I was surprised when I first explored white teas (particularly those with leaves, i.e. non-Silver Needle) and noted how much they reminded me of milky black tea blends.

tanluwils

Yeah, Moonlight white isn’t really a true white tea. It’s its own category since it’s processed differently (via heat in a tunnel). Both can be aged though!

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921 tasting notes

It is Monday morning, my weekend was boring and nothing exciting has happened yet so this introduction is short and lame…on to tea!

Once in a while I run into a tea that really makes me go ‘ooooh’ when reading the description, Yunnan Sourcing’s Wild Tree Purple Moonlight White Tea from Jinggu * Spring 2016 was definitely such a tea. It is no secret that I adore purple teas, and not just because it gives me the excuse to shout ANTHOCYANIN at the top of my lungs whenever I drink it. The extra anthocyanin seems to add a unique quality to the purple teas I have enjoyed, especially some of the purple hong chas, so mixing my love of purple with my almost maniacal love of Moonlight, yeah, I needed this so badly. First off, these leaves are so fluffy and so pretty, practically a rainbow of colors, they are magical. The aroma is pretty heavenly, notes of melon, lettuce, hay, cucumbers, muscadine grapes, plums, sage, and an underlying earthy note that is really hard to pin down. It is sweet and rich while also being light and airy, I am intrigued by its complexity.

Gaiwan time! Decided to use my bat gaiwan set, for nostalgia, plus the dark colors of the leaves compliment the blue quite well. The aroma of the leaves is wow, notes of melon and lettuce dance with cucumber, muscadines, apricots, plums, and a distant note of pepper. It is sweet and pretty intense! The aroma of the liquid is also pretty intense and very sweet, notes of plum and cherry dance with lettuce and cucumber and the distinct note of dandelion pollen. I feel like I am sinking while sniffing it, the aroma has a weight, like purple tendrils pulling me down into sleep.

Well, this tea is magical, that is all I have to say, review done….ok not really. Though this tea is pretty magical, I am amazed how it manages to be both immensely light and refreshing while also being dark and heavy. It is honey drenched lettuce, cucumber crowded plums, buttery muscadines, and a finish of myrrh and distant spice. This is a peculiar tea of notes that I would not usually combine working well together.

The aroma of the second steep is a wonderful combination of muscadines, lettuce, zucchini and myrrh with an underlying honey quality. So this steep is heavy and not as sweet as the first, but with a lingering spice and fruit note that sticks around forever. The start is a bit crisp with notes of honey and grapes with a slight cumber quality. Then the richness of this steep really settles in, buttery lettuce and bok choy with a thick stewed plum quality, though without the usual sweetness associated with the fruit. It is fascinating to have it taste like plum without the sweet, it is unique and I am still loving it.

For the third steep the aroma is still pretty sweet and also crisp, blending grapes and zucchini with lettuce and honey. It still has a gentle resinous myrrh note and also a slight woodiness, specifically sweet fruit wood. This steep is like a combination of the first and second, being immensely sweet and fruity while also being buttery and very rich. The cooked plum note is joined by apricots and it is very nectar sweet, combining with a middle of crisp lettuce and cucumbers, and melon and gentle spiced finish that lingers. Ah, this tea, pity it is already sold out because I want lots more!

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/08/yunnan-sourcing-wild-tree-purple.html

apefuzz

Drinking this right now. Amazing review – totally spot on!

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90
318 tasting notes

A super interesting tea!

The dry leaves are huge! 50 grams came in the larger sized bag that normally fits 100. They’re purple and green and black and red with a musty aroma of pine and ripe fruit.

Brewing it up you get a warm yellow liquid with a floral aroma. There’s a fruity taste like peaches and white grapes, and slightly medicinal like pine and mint. It’s a soft and mellow brew that reminds me of fresh clothes out of the dryer. The taste is similar to YS’s Sundried Purple Buds but overall more enjoyable for me. The wet leaves are olive green to light brown with lots of bud sets.

Flavors: Floral, Mint, Peach, Pine, White Grapes

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 0 min, 15 sec 5 g 5 OZ / 150 ML
tanluwils

This has received some good reviews. Have you tried the Dehong purple raw pu’er? How would you compare the two?

tperez

I do have a purple Dehong brick! The raw puerh is much more bitter and powerful and medicinal tasting. This is more mellow and fruity, sort of like a purple Dehong sheng crossed with Bai Mudan

tanluwils

Nice! I do wish I had purchased that while it was on sale. But, I now have too much tea and am only purchasing things I’m only purchasing items I’m crazy about. This does seem like a curious tea!

Youssef

How long did it take for this tea to sell out last year, because Scott told me that this will be in stock soon, and I will be traveling in a little bit, so I was wondering if I will have time to buy it when I get back (after 3 months).

tperez

I’m not sure, I think it might have sold out pretty quick though

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90
338 tasting notes

Aroma from bag: sweaty socks

Taste of tea: Yummy fresh Bai Mu Dan esque

overall: Going to get finished pretty quickly

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45 tasting notes

Now this is one WEIRD tea.

First off, this is a wild purple tea, so I know to expect weird things. Second, its a Yue Guang Bai, so I know that this is a tea that matures over even short amounts of time (months). So this review is purely for this tea, as it stands, in late April 2016, about a month after this tea was harvested.

First off, the smell off the dry leaves is COMPLETELY unexpected: beef broth, seasoned prime rib, perhaps some Mediterranean herbs. Fucking weird! Not exactly a turn on, but no way am I turning back. This is at the very least intriguing! The leaves themselves are light, crispy, and range in color from light brown, green, to purple. They are sprawling, spindly leaves dangling off of stems, some 4-leaf and a bud combo, but definitely a big mix. Low density mixture overall.

Due to the low density nature of this tea, I crammed an overflowing amount of the spindly leaves into my gaiwan. A quick rinse with 90*C water converted the meaty aromas into straight up sauteed spinach. Again a big WTF! Where’s the white tea aromas? So far this tea smells like a nice dinner, not really a white tea.

OK, so what about the brew itself? Straight up yue guang bai white tea goodness. Seriously WTF!? All of that fragrance from the leaves and not a bit of it, except for a very faint allusion, ends up in the cup itself. I’m perplexed.

Anyway, this will be a very interesting to watch as it matures over the next months+

Flavors: Floral, Herbs, Meat, Spinach

Rasseru

mine has just arrived, opened it and I smell sweaty socks. Wheres that emote with the guys brains melting

ccrtea

LOL I think it is safe to say that this tea is pretty unique.

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