Fell ill, so I’m treating myself with anthocyanins 🟣

📆 Spring harvest of 2007 — this little cake turns 18 this month! What an oldie!

🌿 Purple material in a ratio of 1 leaf / 1 bud + 2 leaves / 1 bud.

📍 Produced by the Yishan factory, located in Jinggu city, Simao prefecture. The factory has been operating since 1999, has ≈15 workers, and doesn’t own its own plantations, purchasing mao cha from the surrounding region.

Over 7 years of aging in the subtropical conditions of Jinggu city led to the tea oils literally soaking into the wrapper, leaving visible marks.

Anthocyanins, which give the leaf its purple hue, possess antioxidant properties and help normalize the mucous membranes, also endowing the tea with a unique organoleptic profile. I wrote in detail about purple tea [here].

Aroma Hot leaf: pomegranate peel, passion fruit rind, lychee pulp, a low note of juicy watermelon flesh, SCOBY (kombucha culture), smokiness.

Steamed: mangosteen peels smoked over charcoal, grapefruit essential oil, watermelon rind, the sweetness of kishmish grape skin, faint smokiness of smoked mushrooms, camphor, and a kind of warming, antique melody reminiscent of grandma’s blanket…

Taste Mind-bending alcohol-like note of fermented prune, sourness of a passion fruit pit, sweetness of strawberry jam. The smoked mangosteen rind now simmered into an oily elixir… On the exhale, ethereal notes of grapefruit drift through.

Feeling You relax, float, zone out… I usually drink old shengs in the evening, due to their pronounced sedative effects, but the context of illness itself calls for peaceful tranquility.