Lao Ban Zhang

I quite like this tea, but can also understand some of the negative reviews here. The amber liquor smells of strong sweet hay, while the wet leaves smell of sweet hay, a hint of tobacco, and another strange sweetness that I can’t really place. I brewed with about 225ml of water, and poured the water slowly from some height to help the tightly compressed leaves open up. That worked really well. The liquor is smooth in the mouth, with just a bit of astringency and the hay flavour is strong. I found the qi to be substantial and enjoyable.

4.5g in 100mL jian shui teapot. the vendor basically says dry storage in Toronto, but I think its more like dehydrated storage. When I opened the bag to smell the dry leaves, there’s that distinct dehydrated storage aroma…lifeless is the only way to describe it if you’re not sure what I’m talking about. perhaps the storage is where this tea went wrong? maybe with better storage it may have been a better experience?

Haveteawilltravel’s review of this tea is very close to my experience, so I’ll just say what wasn’t already said. Very loosely packed, large whole leaves but also lots of pieces, thick center vein.

Vegetables, smokey, slight huigans after 3rd/4th cups but that went away.

The only redeeming quality of this tea was the oily full mouthfeel, but that may have been a increased or caused by my well seasoned jian shui teapot. I am not motivated to brew with a gaiwan just to figure that out. I’m not motivated to even finish the sample. If someone wants it, message me and I’ll pass it along if you want to try it.

Chi was mostly lower back, kidneys, and uncomfortable. I could feel a little movement in the head but it wasn’t very strong. I was underwhelmed…

About a month ago I tried Tao’s Banzhang and last week I tried the Lao Ban Zhang. Taking some time apart from reviewing it because I really felt something off of this and I wanted to make sure it was the tea and not just my overall upbeat mood that day.

Turns out, either I’m really susceptible to tea giving me awesome feelings or this is some serious ‘feels’ tea. It doesn’t have a good taste; something like a factory cake from 2007 to 2009 ’ish, but the feels got me.

That’s about all I can say for this one.

I decided to finally break this out. The dry leaf is super compressed. I was reminded of a XG iron cake. The cake gives a dry vegetal aroma with some faint sweetness. I placed a bunch in my warmed yixing and waited a little bit. The yixing gave a smoke and roasted vegetables aroma. I washed the leaves once and began brewing. This was not a great tea session. The cake took about four rounds of steeping to finally open up, and it didn’t give off any great flavors. This tea has no complexity, and it sticks with some basic tones. For instance, each steeping yielded the slightly yellowed liquor with tastes of roasted veggies, smoke, astringency, and bitterness. I did flash steeping this whole session, and the bitterness would not fade. I experienced a little bit of huigan in one sip, but it quickly faded away. The whole session gives a drying feeling in the mouth. The leaves consist of mostly chop and don’t yield any great experience. However, the qi is present, and is of decent strength. The feeling is somewhat uncomfortable and is centered at the head and back of the neck. I didn’t really enjoy this session. I might be spoiled with my regular offerings. This tea may interest others who have a palette for these sort of things.