Accessible LBZ/Bingdao

[TwoDog2]

That is just Chen Sheng Hao-tastic. http://www.bing-dao.com/products.asp?ty ... A%F7%B2%E8

Do you mind if I use the adjective "Chenshenghao-tastic" from now on? I just tried a 2011 Tiancha from CSH, retails for 1800 RMB (~USD 300) ... yikes... it was, um....Chenshenghao-tastic.

[Drax]

That is just Chen Sheng Hao-tastic. http://www.bing-dao.com/products.asp?ty ... A%F7%B2%E8

Do you mind if I use the adjective "Chenshenghao-tastic" from now on? I just tried a 2011 Tiancha from CSH, retails for 1800 RMB (~USD 300) ... yikes... it was, um....Chenshenghao-tastic.

that's awfully long... how about CSH-tastic, and we'll know what you mean?

[chrl42]

From what I know..over a half of pure LBZ belongs to CSH, though their stuff is blended. Earlier CSHs have higher content of LBZ..there was a time CSH increased the quantities of their products, that's when their quality fell.

I still believe CSH as the most over-rated on the market..and around 3~40% of LBZ bushes are still available not in touch with CSH..but I don't think major factories offer those.

I know of a Korean Pu owner who bought X00,000-usd amount of CSH few yrs ago..though many people pursuaded him not to invest that much since CSH is fairly over-rated...this year he realized the outcome isn't as he expected..still doubled from it was originally

[Tead Off]

Real Bing Dao ancient arbor material is scarce and very, very expensive. When I was in Bangkok last month, I visited JRT Puerh Tea Shop and met its proprietress, Paula Chan. She told me that she was planning to become an agent for the Bing Dao-Refined Tea Company, although she didn't have any of their tea available for sale at that time. She let me try that factory's 2011 production, and it was very good. However, their website makes it apparent that the price of this tea is just way out of my league. They are charging 4500RMB per 400g bing, which is equivalent to 712.30 USD at the current exchange rate. That is just Chen Sheng Hao-tastic. http://www.bing-dao.com/products.asp?ty ... A%F7%B2%E8

I have just come from the above tea shop where I drank this fantastic tea. But SFLouis, I believe, has confused the product that she is actually selling. She is handling the 500g bing of the 2011 production. Her price is about $265 per bing. Each bing is hand signed by the producer and stamped 2011. This is a true whole leaf sheng with a striking yellow color of the liquor. The leaves used are reputedly from 600+ year old trees. The taste is exquisite and is unlike any young sheng Puerhs I've ever had. A true premium tea with a great feeling in the body. Reputedly organic. Big leaves which unfurl slowly during the session.

If anyone is interested, I could help them get some of this outstanding tea. Just PM me.

[SFLouis]

I have just come from the above tea shop where I drank this fantastic tea. But SFLouis, I believe, has confused the product that she is actually selling. She is handling the 500g bing of the 2011 production. Her price is about $265 per bing. Each bing is hand signed by the producer and stamped 2011. This is a true whole leaf sheng with a striking yellow color of the liquor. The leaves used are reputedly from 600+ year old trees. The taste is exquisite and is unlike any young sheng Puerhs I've ever had. A true premium tea with a great feeling in the body. Reputedly organic. Big leaves which unfurl slowly during the session.

If anyone is interested, I could help them get some of this outstanding tea. Just PM me.

Oops! Forgive me, I am easily confused when traveling

I would also like to add that this tea shop carries an Yiwu cake by the factory called Gu Cha Chang which is my favorite among any young Yiwu cake I have yet tried. I think the vintage is 2007, but I may be remembering that incorrectly. I'll attach a photo just in case. This cake has the expected straw smells & flavors, and has them in spades, but it also has a distinct camphor aroma and a dense, heavy sweetness. I'm guessing this comes from a few years of good storage? It has aged just enough to have that sweetness and density, but it still retains a wonderful floral fragrance in the bottom of the cup, and the first few cups have the viscosity that I see referred to so often on taobao as "persistent bubble".

[Tead Off]

I wanted to update this thread and say that all the 2011 Bingdao Tea Refining Factory bings are sold out, possibly everywhere as I've checked several places and all report 'Sold Out'. The seller in BKK will have a few 2009 bings for sale, which IMO is better than the 2011. This is very good tea, but not inexpensive.

[Teaism]

A very interesting tread. I am really curious how a real LBZ and Bingdao can be accessible. There are many small producer lining up at the mountain and buy directly from the minorities who harvest at the wild arbor. Real stuff is really hard to come by and mostly obtainable via direct contact with the producer who reside there, often smaller producer.

A real LBZ is really a tea worth it's price. A real 2012 spring harvest LBZ should cost around about US400-500 for a 375gm beeng (disc cake) based on the price of Maocha bought there......anything cheaper is probably a blend there are many ways to blend LBZ. If you add a bit of Sin Banchang, Bulang, Naka and Hekai you will come close to LBZ taste. it is not a bad tea but we are looking for "Chun Liao " I.e pure tea leaves form LBZ.

Typically, LBZ is a great tea. Newbie and very experience tea drinker will find it exceptional and unforgettable. Perhaps like the truffles, Tartufo D Alba. Ii the LBZ don't blow you away, it is likely to be blended.

Having said that, there are rare opportunity to get it via some Teahouse in the East, but then if it is the real stuff, it still cost a lot and still worth the money. We must also be aware that some sell slightly cheaper but in might be the blended stuff. So buyer beware..

[gasninja]

I don't necessarily agree that if it doesn't blow you away its not real lbz? I believe that there has got to be a difference in quality going on in genuine moacha within LBZ gates. Are you saying that every tree in LBZ and every farmer makes tea that will blow you away, and be worth 300 hundred dollars a cake? There has got to be a difference between farmers in LBZ plus I strongly suspect the use of pesticides, fertilizers and over picking has had an effect on the tea especially in LBZ.
Im not saying LBZ tea is not good. Im saying it's not all great and generally not worth it. Paying three or four hundred dollars for a cake with dubious aging prospects is crazy at that price your paying for the name.

[Teaism]

I don't necissarilly agree that if it doesn't blow you away its not real lbz? I believe that there has got to be a difference in quality going on in genuine moacha within LBZ gates. Are you saying that every tree in LBZ and every farmer makes yea that will blow you away, and be worth 300 hundred dollars a cake? There has got to be a difference between farmers in LBZ plus I strongly suspect the use of pesticides, fertilizers and over picking has had an effect on the tea especially in LBZ.
Im not saying LBZ tea is not good. Im saying it's not all great and generally not worth it. Paying three or four hundred dollars for a cake with dubious aging prospects is crazy at that price your paying for the name.

Hi gasninja,

Thanks for sharing your opinion. I do agree with you that definitely not every tea and every farmer makes tea in LBZ will blow you away. It will be very silly to assume so. The business of tea in China is obviously very different say from the wine business in Bordeaux. Many tea drinkers and collectors often being bombarded with many different strategy and packaging of the tea business. If you recalled the big hu-ha over Puer and the escalating prices and the collapse of Puer market in 2007, you would realize that this devil will emerge again in different form in future.
Seems this trend is coming back again in different form. On the higher end, more exotic names are added, e.g. Bingdao, Laozhai, Mahei etc etc to spike up the value. on the lower end, tea from elsewhere, recently tea from Hunan, Schzuan and Guizhou being transported to Yunnan to be processed into Puer.

I definitely agree with you that even if it is that good it doesn't worth 300 or 400 bucks. On the other hand, I started collecting wild sheng tea from early 2000 and they cost $50 a beeng and now for the same standard, even if it is new tea, it would cost many times more. I really wish the price retain cheap that way, but the dragon has woken up and there are millions with stacks of money in China in the Q for it. that makes it really very difficult to get real good stuff at good price. I was lucky to chance upon LBZ in 2007 via a small producer. At that time it was about US$150 a beeng and was really good. so for many year I come across many LBZ in various form and do comparison by pairing them in tea session. Those in 07 and some subsequent one from the same producer was really good and unbeatable... so at today's price, if it is in that high quality, I still think it is worth the price although they are highly inflated. But that is my personal view.

Perhaps in future, if we have "yuen" (meaning by divine path) and meet over a nice tea session (over LBZ and many other great) we can talk about it more.

You have a great day my friend.. Cheers!

[TIM]

Mind sharing some experience in your collections of LBZ teaism? Love to learn more pics of the cakes pretty please?

[fdrx]

+1 !
I only have a few young LBZ... but after trying slightly more aged LBZ samples i have the feeling that LBZ ages very well: can you give your point of view on this ? Thank you. (i'm not sure the samples were genuine)

[ChengduCha]

I think genuine LBZ (what I've tasted is probably all blended anyway) has a good staying power, but I think chasing after those areas that are essentially a cornered market with inflated prices for gift giving purposes is not a good idea, unless you have plenty of money to blow and are looking for a slight edge in taste that might not be there after all in the end.

http://www.yunnansourcing.com/store/pro ... roduct=956

This one is good imo and at the bottom of the price range. I haven't tasted any $300+ LBZ cakes and probably never will (I could buy a whole lot non famous cakes for that ), so I can't tell you about the taste difference in comparison to the crazy expensive cakes.

[Tead Off]

A very interesting tread. I am really curious how a real LBZ and Bingdao can be accessible. There are many small producer lining up at the mountain and buy directly from the minorities who harvest at the wild arbor. Real stuff is really hard to come by and mostly obtainable via direct contact with the producer who reside there, often smaller producer.
cheaper but in might be the blended stuff. So buyer beware..

The trees from Bingdao, not all of them, are reputedly 600+ years. These trees, according to Tea Urchin's blog, are all leased out to certain producers. They have name plaques hanging around the trees to show which producers are leasing the tree. The only way to know if your Bingdao is all old leaf is to know your producer and trust them. There is obviously a lot of mixing going on.

Prices for old leaf maocha is very high. The only 'deal' you can find is from old stock, not current leaf. I think this area produces very good Puerh and even mixed stuff will be quite good.

[Teaism]

Mind sharing some experience in your collections of LBZ teaism? Love to learn more pics of the cakes pretty please?

Hi Tim,

My apologies, kind of lazy to take pic, perhaps later ok. I will share some experience on LBZ and this is my personal journey and may or may not be the right or wrong way. I started looking at LBZ in 2007 when an old tea master highlighted the tea to me. At that time the Puer market has just collapsed and I was thinking maybe they were desperate and wanted to present some good stuff to win back some confidence. I bought from a small producer who is based in Yunnan and he personally went there to buy from the minorities to process the tea. The same tea was catalogued in the 2007 puer guide book by Wushung Book publication. The first time I tried it, I was really impressed and started to buy some. It was expensive that time but I would just accumulate a small and modest collection for personal consumption. Over the years I collected the 08, 09 and 10 from the same producer and then after that, there were no more stock from him due to high demand and high price.

Along the way, came many "mind boggling claims" LBZ from various producer and I usually brewed them together with those I have. By paring both tea, we can only assess the quality. So far those cheaper and claimed to be genuine ones are a disappointment.

I am not saying those that I collected ones are pure LBZ or not, but so far the taste are really fantastic and the leaves are definitely not blended.
You can tell buy lining up every single leaf after brewing ( which is what I normally do when assessing tea). Most of the time those blended types have different shades and shape of tea leaves.

Over the years, I brewed LBZ for newbie, oldies, ladies etc and all of them have the same high praise for the tea. I usually don't reveal the tea before brewing, to be polite and also let the guest enjoy them per se.
So, what do I think? Yes I would pay for it if it is that good. It is crazy some would say, but that is my personal choice. I just buy in small quantity and enjoy it.

In tea and also in antique collection, " some fools buy and some fools sell"

.

[fdrx]

I had this 6 years sample stored in Guangzhou, supposed to be genuine, it was like a wonderfull endless brewable 7542, but nothing to do with the dry stored young LBZ i know. if this is how LBZ ages i understand why it's so expensive because as a young sheng, honestly, there are much much better young pu for me. I guess i'll have to wait and see.