Purple Leaf Tea by JusTea
Purple Tea / Straight
$17.00 for 60g
JusTea has provided me with Purple Leaf Tea for the purposes of providing an honest review. I received this product at no charge to me and received no other compensation.
First Impressions
I wrote a bit about JusTea in my last review of one of their purple teas (Purple Mint). Purple tea is a variety of the same type of plant that the other teas that we all know and love (e.g. white, green, black, oolong) all come from. JusTea has a whole page dedicated to exploring purple tea and talks about the science behind this variety of tea, so be sure to check out their page for more information.
Purple Leaf Tea came to me in a sample bag, a bit different from the packaging that Purple Mint came to me in, although this one is nice too because I can see the tea leaves through the packaging and there were steeping instructions directly on the packaging. The tea leaves themselves are a bit wiry and they are quite dark. They have an almost dusty aubergine colour to them, almost a grey-purple or indigo in colour. There’s not a lot of smell to the dry leaves, there’s a very mild vegetal smell to them.
Preparation
JusTea recommends steeping Purple Leaf Tea in 175°F (~80°C) water for 3 minutes. I followed the steeping instructions to a tea (tea puns!).
First Taste
Purple Leaf Tea steeps to a nice yellow and there’s not much of a smell coming up from the steeped tea. On first sip, I find that there’s a very mild vegetal taste to this tea and it also has a bit of a roasted flavour to it, almost like there’s a bit of a smokey quality to it – not to be confused with a lapsang souchong at all. The tea itself is savoury, there’s no sweetness that I can pick out from it. At the water temperature and the steeping time that I used (and what was recommended), there was zero astringency and bitterness to the tea. It reminds me of a very mild green tea with the mixed flavour profile of vegetables and smoke.
JusTea recommends adding a bit of lemon juice to get some colour change action. If you read my review of JusTea’s Purple Mint, I was a bit disappointed by the lack of colour change in that tea after having added a squeeze of lemon juice. After adding the lemon juice, the tea went from that nice yellow to a nice bright pink. At first, when I only added a small amount of lemon juice, it was more of a lavender-pink, which had more purple tones. With more lemon juice, it got to the pink you see here:
The lemon brightens up the flavour of the tea, and actually makes the vegetal flavours more pronounced. The sourness of the lemon is tempered nicely with the smokey flavours in this tea (which I do appreciate).
A Second Cup?
I resteeped Purple Leaf Tea twice. The flavour stays pretty consistent with the initial steep for the first resteep, but it begins to really lose flavour for the second resteep. I’d recommend only one more steep for this tea and I’m pleased to say that it continues to have the colour changing ability with each subsequent resteep.
My Overall Impression
I loved JusTea’s Purple Leaf Tea. This tea has a mild savoury flavour to it, that I think lends itself well to being a base for a tea – which is why JusTea has come up with a range of purple tea blends. By itself, the flavour isn’t overly strong, and it reminds me a lot of a green tea (and I do love my green teas). The colour changing aspect works great with this straight tea, so it’s a fun feature if you’re wanting to host a tea party with some friends or children. I’m not usually one for lemon in my tea, but I think it works well for this tea varietal because it helps bring out the vegetal flavours and the smokey flavours tempers down the sourness from the lemon juice.
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