“I got to have a session with this tea courtesy a friend of mine, for which I am very grateful. Especially since it is the first (plausibly legitimate) LBZ tea I’ve ever tried. My overall impression...” Read full tasting note
“Has anyone bought a brick of this tea and put humidity on it for a while? I’m half tempted to do this and would have at the old price of $70 but am leery of the gamble at $125 as the qi is stellar...” Read full tasting note
“This was surprisingly decent. I have not a huge fan of zhongcha unless It has a fairly decent amount of age on it. Now, a 100g zhongcha is a little bit of question mark to me, but I decided to give...” Read full tasting note
“While I enjoyed this tea a good amount, I couldn’t help but think how much better it could be. All the traces of a fantastic puer were there, but a little dull. Not sure if this brick is suffering...” Read full tasting note
2007 Mengku Lao Ban Zhang Ancient Tree Brick * 100 gram brick
Mengku Tea Factory made an expedition to remote area near Banzhang mountain to obtain the leaves for these cakes. The leaves are from trees 400 to 500 years old that were heavily cut during the Cultural Revolution. The trunk is still intact and in the 35 years since the trees have continued to grow and produce excellent quality Pu-erh with that special Banzhang taste and penetrating perfume-like aroma. When brewed is golden yellow and takes 15 or more infusions, each infusion with it’s own taste and gradually less bitter and ineffably sweet.
The cakes are made from the highest grade Ban Zhang raw material and are entirely spring 2007 production. The price of premium Ban Zhang raw material has surpassed other tea mountains, because it is the most sought after. Many producers use just 10% to 20% Ban Zhang material to give their blended cakes enough “oomph” to make them taste good.A little more background. I have known these sellers since 2005. They were one of the earliest distributors of Shuangjiang Mengku tea in Kunming and were my suppliers for Mengku products in 2005 and 2006. The Lao Ban Zhang teas were something that they did themselves as a side-project. Since they did not identify their teas, I just started calling the teas “Mengku Lao Ban Zhang”. They started sourcing teas from this area of Ban Zhang in 2003, again in 2005. In 2007, they produced a Lao Ban Zhang tea of spring material and used the “Chun Jian” style wrapper of Shuangjiang Mengku but instead of"chun jian" written on the wrapper, it was written “Lao Ban Zhang”. This wrapper was produced in very limited quantities and was sold entirely to “Bank of China – Yunnan Branch” for gifting purposes.
2005 wrapper style is shown, 2007 wrapper is the same but with Ban Zhang (班章) characters added.
This cake is 100% Ban Zhang Wild Ancient Arbor material!
Product Name: Lao Ban Zhang Brick
Harvest time: Spring 2007
Net Weight: You will receive one 100 gram brick (due to inconsistent pressing, brick may be as much as 15 grams underweight, be warned!)
Ingredients: Sun-dried Pu-erh from centuries old trees at Lao Ban Zhang
Produced by Members of Mengku Shuangjiang Tea Factory
Company description not available.