Lao Banzhang ’06

Name: Lao Banzhang
Year: 2006
Weight: chunks (from a 1 kg cake/bing)

Details:
At smelling the hot leaves in a warm teapot reminds me of Red Mark of 90’s, do they used Lao Banzhang in the recipe?, who knows, ohh, make sure you drink the rinse brew, it’s sweet and old, dark and colourful, an iron taste in the bitterness concealed, it is almost like blood taste, maybe more bitter this one, but this good genuine chocolate bitterness note, even that is not the right association, the body is energetic after two brews, it’s like pumped up, the brew is so rich that one wonders how come, I used only 4,5 grams, but ofcourse some 50 ml water only, especially in this edition the dark chocolate bitterness stands out, it is almost like dark roasted coffee note mixed with very old woody notes, the mind is focused, it is not in quiet mode but rather calmly focused and balanced, a few brews later decoding this unique bitterness coming close to medicinal note of it, the persistance of this tea is very good, keep prolonging the brews and enjoying the moment…

it is for many of you a hard time to get from these teas what you image or expect, I myself can’t tell you how you prepare this tea, maybe the simple idea is that you have to drink such teas when it is a right time, when you are ready, when you drunk thousands of cups of puerh, drinking your way up to, as climbing a ladder, a shortcuts might be people who can skilfully prepare such tea for you, pull out of them the best, tell you what is there to notice, but even at such occasion you might struggle as you do not feel those things the other talks about, at such moments just do not worry only relax and enjoy the tea, don’t produce lables in your mind as this is not good, this is good, this it not what I expected, just sit and relax, we have a tremendous ‘bio computer’ in us that will tell you (if you would listen to it)

many times I thought that Lao Banzhang village or any other expensive tea producing areas are aritificially hyped up their price but lately I rather believe that our bodies could recognise or rather acknowledge flavours that indicates what is missing and what is benefitial for our body and at the same it is pleasurable for it so that such teas are more sought out

This tea comes from 1 kg cake made by Liming tea factory, subbranch called Ba Jiao Ting, it is the logo with the eight square pagoda like tower. In the moment only a loose ‘dismantled’ chunks are available. The cake is pretty expensive still can be order on request. The cakes contains also pang xie jiao (螃蟹腳) so called crabs feet which is a perennial herb. They say it helps ‘to clean the blood and to get meridians opened’.