2010 Hailanghao "Laobanzhang Gushu"

You know what I'm going to say here, so let's get it over with.

This cake costs $220, at the time of writing.

This is the single most expensive (unaged) cake that I have ever encountered.  This is, therefore, a rather special encounter (for me, anyway).  I devote a few hours on a calm Saturday morning to exploring this remarkable cake.

Is it remarkable for anything other than its price?  We shall see...

Small leaves, densely compressed and heavily fragmented

I previously likened Hailanghao to the bowels of Pandemonium, that infamous city where the fallen angels set up shop.  This is because I believe that Hailanghao attempted to step up into the "premium" brand bracket, after successfully making chunky, fun cakes that represented the top of the mainstream bracket - but they did so without a particularly great increase in quality.  Or, perhaps rather more accurately, the prices that were being asked for Hailanghao after a certain point in time rapidly diverged from the actual quality of the tea.

This cake represents the zenith of this particular divergence.  Indeed, it represents the zenith of all  unaged pu'ercha pricing that I have ever encountered - Internet-based, Maliandao, Taobao, High Street shop.

I alternate between Zidu ("purple belly", my usual pu'ercha pot) and Gertrude (my celadon gaiwan), simply because I hadn't tidied the latter away following my recent Yisheng sessions.

The dry leaves are surprisingly compressed - my 10g sample comes from the centre of the bing, and the leaves are small and heavily fragmented.  This is at odds of the photographs at Yunnan Sourcing, where it is being sold, which show large, deluxe leaves.

However, the dry leaves have a massively minty aroma.  They really smell of menthol.  It is a remarkable aroma.  (I often take the presence of a cooling sensation to indicate a decent proportion of laoshu [old tree] maocha in the blend.)

(The "gushu" in the cake's name means, of course, "ancient tree".)

The aroma is - unsurprisingly - minty in the extreme.  It has a long, constant sweetness that sits in the aroma cup without dissipating.

In the mouth, the first impression is the quick, high fruitiness - springtime, lively, enjoyable.  The minty body then rapidly asserts itself.  These leaves are, undoubtedly, laoshu to a great extent.  The blurb on the merchant's web-page describes it as being 100% laoshu, picked under the supervision of Hailanghao's owner.  This could, for once, be true.  It's like drinking mint.

Within minutes, my nose is entirely clear, and I am breathing cold blasts of menthol air through each nostril.

The leaves in my sample - chopped and small

This is an interesting tea.  I am glad to have tried a sample, but I cannot say that I actually enjoyed it a great deal.  There is a sour note that dwells in the body that stops me from falling in love, and it is rather monotonic.  Unlike other pure laoshu that I have tried from Laobanzhang and Xinbanzhang, it isn't particularly charming.

Hailanghao may certainly have acquired good leaves, but there is something not entirely satisfactory here that prevents me from loving it.  (This is before we consider the $220 price tag.)

My dear wife passes by and grabs a cup: "This is quite simple", she notes.

While it does have plenty of laoshu characteristics, it is entirely one-dimensional.  Whereas the previous laoshu banzhang leaves that I have tried have been one-dimensional (because they come from a single source), that one dimension has been clean, leathery, sweet, and buttery.  By way of contrast, this Hailanghao's one dimension is more of a straight, sweet sourness with little more than its menthol character to commend it.  

Its provenance is not in doubt, but provenance alone does not necessarily a good cake make.

The advertised leaves - full, large, and whole

So, at the end of it, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to buy a single session's exposure to another example of Laobanzhang leaves, but, in this case, I am left with the impression that is how one should not make a laoshu bing.

If you happen to be the proprietor of Yunnan Sourcing: I appreciate your store very much, but please look away now.

For the rest of us: $220 for this cake (1,400 RMB!) is, I am afraid to say, barking mad.