Artisan Revival Banzhang '06 Sheng Pu'er

Tea type
Pu'erh Tea
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Cedar, Cream, Mineral, Wood
Sold in
Not available
Caffeine
Not available
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Thomas Smith
Average preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 0 min, 15 sec

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2 Tasting Notes View all

  • “I got a few Verdant samplers from Geoffrey and this has been my second favorite so far. Unfortunately, I didn’t write notes when tasting the lovely Xingyang Golden Leaf ’98 Shu so I will only be...” Read full tasting note
    74
  • “Wow, I didn’t know I still had this tea, let alone the 2 ounces still left in the sealed bag. Anyway, I put a generous portion in my gaiwan, and steeped the leaves in near-boiling water for 18...” Read full tasting note
    87

From Verdant Tea

Our famous stone-pressed Artisan Revival, a sweet, spicy brew, creamy like an oolong, and about as complex enough to captivate any palate. . . .
This tea is immediately rich and buttery, with a refined walnut flavor that lingers in the aftertaste. The next steepings build upon that with the thick texture of melon that grows and unfolds like one might expect a Tieguanyin to steep out. Later, an orange citrus sparkle engages the top of the palate, supported by a woodsy juniper flavor. This is honestly a very difficult tea to fully capture in description. In all of our tasting sessions, we have come to realize that if you think of a flavor profile while sipping this, you will find it in the tea, no matter what you are looking for. It combines the thick and luscious quality of our first generation Artisan Revival with the nutty and savory qualities of the Farmer’s Cooperative, and the cedar sparkling qualities of the Star of Bulang.

As our first generation Artisan Revival dwindled, we wondered how we could follow it up with a worthy successor. This brick, like most of our sheng pu’er can be credited to pu’er master Wang Yanxin. David trained under Master Wang to understand pu’er. We told her that her Artisan Revival from Hekai was becoming one of the most respected pu’ers out there, and begged for more. She only told us then that she had given us the entire remaining stock of it, but promised as a matter of honor to find something even better. This is what she came up with. The aging potential is of course unimaginable. We recommend purchasing one of the seven 357g bricks we were able to acquire before they are gone.

DATE OF PICKING:
June, 6th, 2006

LOCATION OF PICKING:
Banzhang Ancient Forest Workshop, Old Banzhang Village, nestled in the mountains of Xishuangbanna, Yunnan

WHAT WAS PICKED:
Silvery buds and large leaves from old tea trees, stone pressed in the traditional methods.

SOURCING AGENT:
Wang Yanxin, in collaboration with Banzhang Ancient Forest Workshop

About Verdant Tea View company

Company description not available.

2 Tasting Notes

74
93 tasting notes

I got a few Verdant samplers from Geoffrey and this has been my second favorite so far. Unfortunately, I didn’t write notes when tasting the lovely Xingyang Golden Leaf ’98 Shu so I will only be able to write about that based on memory. It’s great sharing tea you feel needs to be appreciated by more than one person, but it leaves one wanting to enjoy conversing and talking about tea rather than writing stuff down.
I have just enough left to take another stab at this one and am tempted to incorporate tasting that with the archived notes I’m cutting and pasting now, but would kinda prefer to hold the remainder of the sample for a few months and taste again at the end of summer. I have just enough to brew in the same pot at lower concentration but still within my typical young sheng cha range. It’s a nice tea and I’d normally jump and buy it so I could experiment and draw a better impression (or, more importantly, put some age on it and see how it does) but really don’t have the money for it right now. So here’s my tasting notes transcribed from May 20th – been busy and haven’t really had the time to post ’em til now.

8g leaf per 200mL in my Duan Ni Shi Piao pot for young Sheng Cha utilizing a single rinse at 89C.

Infusion 1: 85C, 15sec. Toasty, edamame-like wet leaf aroma. Liquor aroma and initial impression very much akin to pure, light maple syrup. Crisp, light flavor with a sweetness that takes a moment to appear. Sweetness is similar to Basmati white rice. Faint green bean and edamame toasty-vegetal flavor with a juniper accent (halfway between berries and leaves). Moderate body. Clear, amber liquor.

Infusion 2: 85C, 15sec. Rich, raw sugar cane (whole cane) aroma and a hint of molasses now present in rice-like sweetness. Crisp mouthfeel lingers. More woody, with a pine bark characteristic balanced against a light longan fruit taste.

Infusion 3: 85C, 15sec. Less sweet. More wood (cherry tree twigs). Light back-of-throat astringency. Lingering light green onion note. Hint of soy sauce hiding in edamame skin base.

Infusion 4: 85C, 15sec with new water. Less sweetness (now like long grain brown rice). Still crisp, but more astringent (still light and towards rear of tongue and throat). Wet cotton taste. Very much like stir-fried water chestnuts and bamboo shoots with a slight cedar-spiciness. Alfalfa in base when gulped. Next infusion will be longer and cooler.

Infusion 5: 75C, 1min. Nearly same as last but now with a dry grass component (more like a dry field – not straw or hay). A bit of a clay flavor has taken on the roll of the base when sipped but alfalfa and dry leaves are evident when gulped. Somewhat pithy sour wash when cool.

Infusion 6: 75C, 2min. Sedges and bamboo shoots. Much more lingering nose and vaporous quality in the throat, but also more back-of-mouth astringency. Alfalfa still in base flavor. Viscosity still kinda low for Puerh but more evident in these longer infusions.
Watercress in back of throat provides odd juxtaposition to more dry earth and grass primary flavors.

Infusion 7: 70C, 2min. Color has suddenly shifted from an orangey-yellow amber hue to a muted gold with a hint of green. Color blends in well against my bamboo tea table. More crisp up front and quickly dies over much of the tongue with just a lingering snow pea crisp and sweet taste along the sides. Reminds me of staling Zhu Ye Qing green tea. Stark contrast to prior infusion has me thinking I’ll start with cooler water next round. Faint browned butter flavor in middle of tongue and nose sticks around for a while. The majority of noticeable flavor presents after swallowing – the initial impression is akin to heavy bodied water. Hmm, those were my first thoughts when having Yin Zhen white tea for the first time and this is drawing that memory from around 10 years ago… This lacks the honeysuckle and nutty notes and has that slight sour quality (now reminding me of white plum) but as it cools I’m noticing a similarity to Bai Mu Dan in a cucumber-like base that’s developing. Funny that this dying infusion is easier to discern these characteristics on – maybe a lower concentration, longer, cooler approach throughout next round will reveal more.

Out of the tasting notes suggested by Verdant, I only got cedar and juniper as obvious ones. If I’d read the description before tasting and writing all this out I’m sure melon and citrus would have plagued my tasting notes like soot in a house with a wood stove. In retrospect, many of the characteristics I wrote are the same I write about medium-oxidation Tieguanyins but I really didn’t think of that group of teas at all when drinking this, in spite of the company description. Similar in what elements you may find in those teas, but not similar in flavor to one-another.

Pretty darned tasty as a whole. Had two other 2006 shengs since taking these notes and this one’s a tad more approachable but less diverse in character to either (a Pasha Shan Haiwan Factory cake and a Mao Cha I’ve reviewed here before). I think this tea is great for enjoying right now but probably doesn’t have much to offer in the way of aging.

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 0 min, 15 sec

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87
250 tasting notes

Wow, I didn’t know I still had this tea, let alone the 2 ounces still left in the sealed bag.

Anyway, I put a generous portion in my gaiwan, and steeped the leaves in near-boiling water for 18 seconds. The results is initially very mellow, a bit creamy but not overly so. The flavor intensifies to a kind of woody flavor with a bit of a mineral sensation that lingers on palate long after the tea is gone. Well, mineral might not be quite the right word to describe the sensation, but it’s not silky, or smooth, and there is a hint of stringency associated with it. It’s a bit like a Japanese green in that the astringency makes it more interesting than if it wasn’t present. Other flavors are present, but they are very subtle and kind of hard to describe. I also remember the tea being sweeter, but that’s probably just because this tea is getting rather old now. Regardless, it is well worth tasting this tea slowly to appreciate the complex flavors. Can’t wait to see how it develops.

Flavors: Cedar, Cream, Mineral, Wood

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 15 sec

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