Disclaimer: I was not going to do this as I expected this cake to be a typical young puerh cake, and warrant the typical comments with highlights of its unique features, but as I am absolutely in love with this cake, and I feel I am giving it too many good comments. I want it to be known that I received this cake on good will of giving this vendor good press, and business. I have had several discussions with the owner and he wanted me to also review it on the site.
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The only vendor I know that sells Zhi ming Du cakes is Kung Fu Asian art, but I must admit I have not searched through the large amount offered at Yunnan sourcing.
Zhi Ming Du is a newer company and they are doing a series on several mountains this one being the Lao Banzhang area.
Going off of instinct as the rinse smelled quite potent, I did a flash brew for the first infusion.
This is potent, its highly floral, with hints of smokiness and a slight hint of something minty. While it is not a smell I would like to smell all day as its quite strong, I feel you could smell this for quite some time and still find new notes, its a hodgepodge of all sorts of fresh aromas.
I know this cake carries a hefty price tag, and I must tell you I can see why Lao Banzhang is quite well known if this is what it offers. The taste is a strong bitterness that is extremely nice. I know bitter is not a flavor usually liked, but something about this bitterness with orange and mint, and a cream, is just so satisfying.
The second infusion smells a little less powerful, but full fledged orchids and other florals. Its been quite some time since I've had a young puerh that I did not want to stop drinking, and that I found completely intriguing on so many levels. this infusion of focused on the finish and its like an orange cream lingering finish that just lasts and lasts.
I will say this, this cake requires an attentive brewer to be honest. I tried to push the 3rd infusion a bit, and let it go 10 seconds longer then the 20 I was going to give it, and its so strong that it is borderline unpleasant.
Its strength starts to fail around infusion 8, and I'm giving it a very long 10th infusion to see if it recovers the things I loved about it. With the long infusion it gains back some of its former glory, but its changed quite a bit.
A new experience
comes with the sips of each tea.
So, what will yours be? --Adam Yusko.
8 comments:
Let me ask you, when you steep so many times, how much water do you use each steep?
TeaCast,
A lot of it has to do more with leaf to water ratio, but for this tea I had about 5 grams in a 60 ml gaiwan, which probably only produced 30-40 ml of actual tea.
how is the compression? I like the idea of 100 gram cakes, which probably age faster and more evenly due to smaller surface area and total volume, but if it's compressed as tightly as a 100 gram tuo it's never going to age...
Maitre_Tea
Its fairly tight compression, I'd almost say slightly too tight. But then again I prefer cakes that can be somewhat broken apart by hand. But I have hopes that this might loosen up a bit over time.
Hey unfair, stop tempting me with tales of magical mini lao banzhang cakes! ;-)
The cake sure looks tasty. I might just have to check those out for myself.
I was just a click away from ordering one but I hesitated. Not because $36.99 is actually that much really, we've all done a lot worse than that in the past, but just that in the eBay shop it's listed next to it's brethren bings with non lao banzhang leaf inside for only $8.99 or so. I was suddenly just re-shocked at the lao banzhang price factor!
I've drank a couple of fresh sheng that are called lao banzhang recently and I really much enjoyed one and certainly not the other. It's such a game of russian roulette.
Anyway, I've now changed my mind, pay day was only a week ago and I have some change. The blog entry was written openly and Adam should be applauded for stating his interests at the start. I trust entirely that he really likes this tea, I just hope I do too! ;-)
I'm such a sucker for bitterness.
Yeah after thinking about it I realized for a few dollars more you could buy a Yunnan Sourcing Lao Ban Zhang 357 gm cake. And those cakes I know are good quality 100% genuine LBZ.
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