Purple Puerh question

Puerh and other heicha
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puerh2000
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Thu Mar 30, 2023 12:46 pm

Hi,
I noticed that a seller in Hong Kong was selling some purple Puerh.
Can anyone say whether purple tea is universally genuine, or have there been any incidences of dyeing known to have occurred?
Thanks.
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pedant
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Thu Mar 30, 2023 6:12 pm

welcome to the forum. i've never heard of this purple puerh. can you share a pic or some more info?
Andrew S
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Thu Mar 30, 2023 6:32 pm

My understanding is that purple puer may be a reference to puer-style tea made from a wild tea plant, which is not camellia sinensis var sinensis, nor camellia sinensis var. assamica.

Here's one person's view on the topic: https://mattchasblog.blogspot.com/2017/ ... h-tea.html

I don't think anyone can say whether it is "universally genuine", though, but then there's probably nothing that can be described as "universally genuine" in the world of puer, or in the world of tea more generally.

Andrew

Addendum: here's another post on purple tea (from a vendor with a good reputation here): https://www.pageoftea.com/zi-juan-purple-tea
.m.
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Fri Mar 31, 2023 8:11 am

This is what Yunnan Sourcing says:
Purple Tea is a special Yunnan tea. There exist three unique varieties, all different cultivars. The original Purple tea is called "Wild Purple" or "Ye Sheng" Purple tea. The varietal is referred to as Assamica Dehongensis. Ye Sheng tea is very bitter when young but ages quickly and develops great complexity with age. It was originally processed into mao cha and sold as a kind of Raw Pu-erh tea, but more recently has been processed into Black tea with incredible results! The second kind of purple tea is often called "Zi Cha" 紫茶 or 紫芽 (Purple tea or Purple Bud). Zi Cha is a naturally occurring mutated version of Assamica. It grows all over Yunnan and accounts for less than 1% of cultivated Assamica in Yunnan. The third kind of purple tea is called "Zi Juan". Zi Juan (aka Purple Beauty) is a man-made cultivar developed by Yunnan Xishuangbanna Tea Research Station in the late 1990's. Fujianese purple leaf cuttings from Wu Yi area were hybridized with local Yunnan Assamica plants to product this unique tea.
In short one should distinguish between Yesheng (wild tea of nonstandard camellia sinensis variety), Zijuan (a cultivar) and Zi Cha (random purple mutation?). In general, once processed the leaves won't be purple, so dyeing doesn't make sense.
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Baiyun
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Fri Mar 31, 2023 9:02 pm

I think the purple aspect comes down to the presence of anthocyanin as an expression of plant stress adaptation, but there can be a bit of colour variation in this it seems.

From what I recently had, this is an example of what I considered a purple puer (although not advertised as such):
https://essenceoftea.com/collections/pu ... liang-wild

It's got a bit of that hue, quite apparent in person, and a taste that I perceive to be a subcategory of a wild flavour profile, whilst still having a characteristic sheng processing note. I like it.
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Thundercleese
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Sat Apr 15, 2023 4:39 am

I've been drinking a bunch of purple teas lately.

There's definitely a difference from the anthocyanins as well as texture than red/black teas because of the tannin structure (and increased presence in unskilled or indifferent hands - looking at you, Justea :roll: ). Functionally among other things they act as a plant's antifreeze, which is why you'll see cold hardy brassicas like kale and chard turning purple at the first frost. There's a different character to teas made with purple leaves. Slightly peppery (piper not capsicum), slightly vegetal (wild arugula-ish), slightly mineral (slate/granite). Anyone who's eaten a lot of both purple and green Genovese basil can reverse engineer what I'm referring to.

Some of the purple is lost during the processing, but all of the Ye Sheng, Zi Cha, and Zi Juan that I've tried have been different enough from black tea that they've been added to the rotation in some way pretty regularly. The Zi Juan in particular has roasted honey/caramelized sugar/floral upper notes that I really enjoy against the increased body from the anthocyanins and the bite of the tannins.

There would be little to no reason for anyone to fake purple tea. It's not like there's a hot purple tea market where people are paying a dollar a gram for the first of the season.
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