How tea makes you feel
Sometimes when I’m drinking old ripe/raw pu’er (before 2000), it feels like there is something in the tea that makes me feel, well I guess you could say ‘tea drunk’. As if a veil comes over me and completely changes my current state of mind. Not to be confused with a caffeine rush. I feel either like my eyes are getting really heavy with a slight mind numbing. Or I can feel very alert, similar to some amphetamines. I guess the energy of the tea or ‘Cha Qi’ is coming into affect with my Qi. Or could it be something entirely different chemically in the tea? Perhaps more GABA, theanine, or even pesticides? I’m no scientist though haha. Last night I took the small amount of 7542 I own out of the pumidor (pu’er humidor) that I got two years ago in Vancouver. The owner of the shop told me it was stored in Calgary for over 25 years. So I only really drink this tea on special occasions. After the 8th steep I felt very very different, almost high. Just wondering if I’m alone on this or do others feel this as well?
Cha qi is the way l-theanine, anthocyanins, and caffeine interact with your body. I like to believe there’s also the intentions that go into the production and journey of the tea into its final destination (your cup) that determine the feeling you get from a certain tea. :-)
Also, it’s for this reason that I personally don’t drink anything from Lao Banzhang. Overhyped prices fueled by greed = bad intentions = bad cha qi. Just my personal outlook on it :-)
Interesting. I don’t really focus on the science behind tea. So I’ll have to do a bit more research on the chemistry. But I also like to think that the people producing the tea give it a special feeling! I think you can really feel the passion that a master puts into a tea
While lbz is expensive and most of it is fake the real deal stuff is an amazing experience and worth the price of admission. Having also recently tried confirmed legit gfz recently I can say that’s another overhyped area worth trying if. Bingdao has proven to be more elusive and the ones I’ve tried have not lived up to the hype yet, most likely cause they are not the real deal even though there were still good teas.
I also have had the opportunity to drink real LBZ and while I thought it really good I thought it overpriced and was in any case beyond my price range. I did appreciate the opportunity to drink it. I am not sure I have had real Bingdao tea to comment on that.
How can you tell if your LBZ is legitimate or not? Are there some tell tale signs or…? It almost seems impossible to find LBZ from a farmer in LBZ that would actually sell it to you from what I’ve heard.
I think the only way to tell it is legitimate is to get it from a trusted source like Yunnan Sourcing, not Ebay.
I’ve been looking for a 2005 Gan En Lao Ban Zhang cake for awhile now. But I can’t seem to find one that seems to be real. I saw one once for around $150, seemed way too low.
King Tea on Aliexpress has some LBZ and he seems to be trustworthy but my most trusted source for tea in general is Yunnan Sourcing. They have several different LBZ, one or two of which I have sampled.
Lbz = lao ban zhang, a village that that was originally showcased by the menghai tea factory in the early 2000s with the “bok choy” cakes. The reason it’s so famous is the very powerful qi. The real deal will pretty much float your brain. Marshaln described it’s as such….. “The effect is more like a naked sumo wrestler running straight at you full speed while you’re being tied down by two other sumo wrestlers” it’s also thick and oily with the best huigans of any tea. Imagine a really pumped up Bulang. There is some legit stuff left at houde for 600 a cake and even that is not the absolute top grade stuff but it’s really good. Having drank this a few times I can tell you that the qi is massive. Another person I traded some to told me it’s like drinking morphine… Little more on price. Thay cake is cheap for lbz at 600, it sells for over a thousand in Taiwan. The prices for 2015 top top grade lbz is over 5000 USD a kilo. So you could be talking about 1700 a cake and up. Most to all of that material never makes it to market though.
oh wow ok. like one of the holy grails of tea drinking then. its been interesting reading about the psychoactive effects of some tea, im very much into biology, chemistry & pscyhonoaught-y stuff
There is a small tea shop on the Lower East Side of Manhattan that is named Tea Drunk! http://tea-drunk.com/
AllanK, I attended a Steepster meetup there a while ago, and it was great! Nicole Martin (Tea for Me Please is her handle at Steepster) organized a special tasting for us there, and it was really interesting.
makes me feel relaxed i suppose, but ive never been tea drunk.. i think i just dont have the right pu-erh.
thank you sir. im ordering two samples because im curious as to what kind of qi this carries. are there no cakes of this?
- actually ill order on saturday.. after i get my paycheck lol.
shipping is about $14, is it worth it to order more than two samples? also how many infusions should one orb yield?
I’d order a nice round of samples. Bosch, 72 hours, 54-46, Last thoughts, the gfz orb, 05 Naka, tuhao all will do the trick in terms of getting tea drunk. For something humid and aged the 90s HK style,99 8582, 2000 7532 are good examples. Also try some of the cheaper options as they are also very good. Tough to go wrong with W2T in general
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