2012 Lao Banzhang Ming Qian

The Trails of LBZ, Case 9 of 6
(Liquid Proust search for his favorite laser beam zensheng)

Obtaining some of this through a swap made me incredibly happy because this is a pricey tea. In that same trade I got some LBZ maocha from Tea Urchin as well so I really hope that what I sent to that person made them feel special as I did opening the swap.

Now many had told me that this was the one to compare the others to and if that was true I did it backwards because I should have done it first or second, but it wasn’t but two weeks ago until I had my hands on it. Blah, blah, blah… tasting notes:

The broken pieces are ugly; as I would guess for anything coming off a brick to be honest. The smell of this is quite strong which was unique. The first few steeps seemed to have been the brewing of astringent notes coming out. I’ve been told that true LBZ will drop off quick and become sweet so this astringency isn’t causing doubt for me.
Going into the fourth steep with nothing really to comment on, all of a sudden texture appeared. I’d call it creamy, but it’s really best described as buttery (but I never refer to sheng as being buttery because that’s an oolong thing to me).

Hoping that some fruity sweetness would come out, I was kind of met with this dirty nut from outside laying on the grass taste. While that’s not something bad, but it wasn’t what I had expected. This makes it much different than the others that I had drank.

The texture and taste stays the same throughout without much to point out after steep 8. Realizing the price factor on this tea and trying to evaluate it the best that I could, I ended up going 27 steeps all by myself. This lasted all morning and I ate nothing until I finished this session with a purpose; test those feels. So what is the conclusion? I felt absolutely nothing in regards to power which is odd. With no feels and a taste profile that is somewhat like a nutty yellow tea and a freshly dirty raw pu’er (if you know what I mean), I cannot sell myself on it. Honestly I could put this up against a lot of Mengku cakes and it wouldn’t stand out.

Honestly, I was disappointed and still am. Not only did I not eat anything so my body could feel the tea even more, I set aside the whole morning to do this because I knew it was a special occasion that I wouldn’t get again unless I paid a decent amount. As of today, the 2007 Mengku LBZ is the best bargain for feels when it comes to this search. With the Tea Urchin LBZ maocha , 2010 LBZ from YS, and puer.sk 2004 bamboo stored LBZ, I’m almost to the end of my road with these unless someone else comes along with a surprise.