Tea Video Ideas
Hey Steepster, W
We have a couple ideas for tea videos:
• evaluating teas (and fakes) by flavor, leaf examination and other characteristics; and
• interviews with fun folks from the tea world;
Let us know what other topics you would be interested in learning about or seeing.
Cheers,
Phil
Puerh.fr did a blog series comparing Dayi productions prior to 2007 or so, and after. This would be a study worth repeating as it has been a few years since theirs.
Great recommendation. Zhen has written recently about Pu’er and we are interested in continuing the series.
http://www.zhentea.ca/the-perils-of-fancy-puer/
http://www.zhentea.ca/yunnan-puer-experiment/
http://www.zhentea.ca/the-odd-economy-of-puer/
Your story about how Lao Ban Zhang tea is not as good as it used to be was interesting. It does not surprise me that they over harvest it. But at the price of real Lao Ban Zhang tea I expect not to drink much of it. I have seen it on King Tea on Aliexpress for more than $1500 and even then you cannot be sure it is real. There is more tea called Lao Ban Zhang than all the annual harvest of Lao Ban Zhang village by at least a factor of ten. And they sometimes get a lot for the fakes too. A friend once sent me some samples of what I believe to have been real Lao Ban Zhang tea. While it was quite good I didn’t think it was worth the price they get for it.
Lao Ban Zhang has become a “label” rather than just a region name nowadays, and this is their justification as most Lao Ban Zhang in the market has nothing to do with the village. It’s a similar situation to Da Hong Pao, just less formal.
As far as I know, the price of this year’s Lao Ban Zhang starts at least $1000 per cake for real ones, and that’s not even for old tree! For the old trees or even ancient trees the price is much higher. I really feel that there’s no point chasing this high price only for the fame unless the wallet is deep enough.
Yunnan Sourcing just posted a LBZ cake on their website for something like $700 and from Scott I trust it to be real. It is a Hai Lang Hao tea. I also know that Lao Ban Zhang is used as a label. There is a fairly good brand called LaoManE’ LaoBanZhang or something like that. To the best of my knowledge the brand doesn’t offer teas from either of those regions but uses it as a label. I have bought a couple of their ripe teas and been happy with them. But when I was buying them I knew they were not claiming them to be Lao Ban Zhang or Lao Man E teas. I could see how some people would be fooled by the use of the brand name though.
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