老班章 Lao Banzhang

Lao Banzhang is the most celebrated puerh terroir in Yunnan — a small mountain village in Menghai county where fewer than 100 households tend ancient trees that produce what collectors worldwide call the King of Pu-erh. This is the ripe (shu) version: big-tree material from the 2015 harvest, fermented and pressed in 2021 by a private village artisan using traditional Menghai technique. In raw (sheng) form, Lao Banzhang is famous for a powerful, thick liquor and a pronounced bitter-sweet balance that builds into a deep aftertaste. In shu form, the same big-tree terroir expresses differently: the fermentation process rounds and deepens the natural sugars, producing a liquor that opens with dark honey and aged wood, moves through a warming middle, and finishes with a long, soft sweetness that lingers well after the cup is empty. Six years between harvest and pressing is not unusual for a producer who dry-stores raw material before fermentation — it settles the leaf and concentrates flavour. This cake is a genuine Lao Banzhang shu at a fraction of the price of aged sheng from the same village. Worldwide delivery.