2009 Shuangjiang Mengku Lao Ban Zhang
Lao Ban Zhang pu’er has a bit of a legendary status in my mind, having read tales of unparalleled chaqi experiences, with potency so strong it can bring massive headaches and tea drunkenness like none other. It’s also supposed to taste pretty nice. Unfortunately, this particular appellation of tea also has two negative forces acting on it. The first is speculative cost and the second is landscape degradation in the name of profit (also see The Half-Dipper for a more informed perspective).
Purportedly a conscious consumer of this earth, practices exhibited by tea producers in the Lao Ban Zhang area are exactly the kinds of things that I work to explicitly avoid. That being said, I could not resist trying this legendary tea before moving on to tea sourced from potentially more sustainable practices, so I added a sample to an order from Yunnan Sourcing a few months ago.
I found the compression and composition of the sample quite enjoyable. The leaves were relatively even in size, moderately long, pleasantly colored, and fresh-looking. It was nice to get a cake sample that wasn’t just the iron-fist tight and all-dust core of the beeng. The tea opened slowly and quietly. The dry leaf aroma was low and lightly sweet. The first two steeps were rather quiet, especially clean, and a little plain.
The fourth steep really shined. Lacking any coarseness and feeling smooth and velvety, this tea glided pleasingly across the palate. Bits of sweetness, distant stone-fruit, and some moss glowed in the finish. Confident dryness and back-of-the-throat bitterness rounded out the presentation. I longed for more earth, tree bark, lichen, and wet forest, but was happy with the balance, smoothness, and robustness of this tea’s texture. It was solid tea, but it wasn’t so exemplary that I would ignore my ethical concerns and buy tongs of Lao Ban Zhang tomorrow. There are other teas, with better provenance and less cost.
Finally, I’ll say that I didn’t find the chaqi particularly notable, in fact it seemed a little soft to me. I feel pleasant, calm, and peaceful, not electrically charged or overwhelmed. Perhaps I’m seasoned enough to not notice, but my experience at The Mandarin’s Tea Room might suggest otherwise, so this particular sample might not be the best show of Lao Ban Zhang’s true potency.
