2004 Zhong Cha Raw Pu-erh - King of Ban Zhang

Today I had the day off from school, It was a virtual day, where the class meets online and school ends at 12:00. So, since I had so much time on my hands, I went to friday prayers, and had a whole day free!

So it was around sunset, and I haven’t had any tea all week, so I thought that I should have a quick session.

This tea is wonderful while it lasts. I was checking over again to see if this was really raw puer, as it had characteristics of oolongs, and black teas, but not of aged raw puer! But it was true, this was a raw, and it’s absolutely amazing.

It has a slight black tea like bitterness, and tastes like a toned down darker oolong (as you can tell I’m not too experienced with oolong so I really can’t get into the specifics). It is light, and flavorful and a bit of some spice coming through, very warm and inviting. If I had to pin it down to something (I know this isn’t a spice), but I’d say gingerbread, or something along those lines.

I wrote down in my tea log that this tea would be one that would be paired perfectly with a lonely snow covered cabin, and it’s true, this would just be the perfect tea for it!

The aroma on this is wonderful, like a nice perfume, and when I was washing out my gaiwan it smelled as though I was washing a cup that had some sort of fruit juice in it, it’s aroma is really wonderful!

However, I would have definitely rated this tea at 100, if it were for taste at it’s peak, but it fell really fast. I got around 6 steepings out of it, and all the flavor was gone by that point.

A great tea if you want a quick session though. I might have been complaining about how little it lasted, but for me this tea was absolutely perfect, I was drinking it around sunset, so I didn’t want too much caffeine, and this tea did just that, it gave me a great small little session.

Had a sample of this from BTTC. The 10g sample was almost all in one lump, which flaked apart easily with the pick. The dry leaf is very dark, with some golden buds. Warm dry leaf has a generic mature sheng smell, sort of sweet and hay-like.

The leaf was well-separated and after a 5s rinse I got 5 increasingly dark 5s infusions before feeling a need to increase the time. The flavor is smooth and pleasant, slightly sweet but rather nondescript. Good thick mouthfeel, oily, up through about steep #7. There is practically no cold cup scent. I taste no hint or dirt or stone. I kept at it for 18 steeps, with the last one being 2min. The last 6 infusions probably should have been 2, going straight for the long steeps. I was getting a tea sweat around steep 10.

This tea has very clean dry storage with no trace of wetness I can detect, good longevity, and starts out with a strong feel. The flavor is on the boring side.