2024 Ban Pen Big Trees Puerh

FatBat Private Pressing Raw Puerh

班盆老寨 大树

In early tasting, this 2024 pressing has a heavier bitter core than previous years, with a sweetness that is darker and more underlying. A moodier, more brooding Ban Pen. Comparatively a more serious tea that some drinkers may prefer to save for maturation, and is our choice for longer-term aging in tong format. 

Think of this one as our love letter to Bulang Mountain, as well as to our customers who love the region but not the gushu pricing. 

This is a grove we book each year to produce a superb Ban Pen raw puerh that far transcends its non-gushu status. It is the combination of the specifically selected grove, plus stringent picking + processing done by our own team, in Brother Sha's class-leading Menghai facility, that yields a tea which easily competes with "gushu" productions from many other houses. This we dare to say.

2024 is the final year of our 3-year contract with the owner of these trees and we have not yet been able to secure the contract renewal (at reasonable terms) for next year. We will continue negotiating but it is possible we may not be able to make this tea next year (though we won't stop trying!).

A NOTE ON QUALITY

Our Ban Pen tea is not bitter, nor does it have the "soapy" flavors of many Bulang teas on the market. To achieve such a purity of flavor -- all the "desired" notes of sharp wildflowers, light honey, and a hoppy bitterness overtaken quickly by lasting sweet huigan -- the grove we pick from is completely clean and free from agrochemicals. (Even fertilizer, commonly used in many Bulang gardens given how commercial this region has become, imparts a distinctive soapy flavor which we are sensitive to and reject immediately.) Processing is done by the same team which handles our Lao Ban Zhang; even after drying, we taste-test every single wok of maocha that is finished, to ensure quality, pressing only those that pass.

TERROIR 

Situated just a few kilometers away from Lao Banzhang, with very similar terroir, Ban Pen is most famous for being seen as a "poor man's" Lao Banzhang. Administrative jurisdiction aside, there is no natural boundary between the tea gardens of Ban Pen Lao Zhai (Ban Pen Old Village) and Lao Banzhang. Hence, flavor profiles are exceedingly close, with Ban Pen tea coming across slightly softer and more rounded than its frequently more intense Banzhang counterpart. As a result of their similarity, Ban Pen tea is often blended into many "Banzhang"-labeled pressings by less-transparent producers.

Ban Pen is a tricky area to source from, given the farmers' propensity to push prices up by overselling their proximity to Lao Ban Zhang, as well as the tendency for non-gushu Bulang material to easily exhibit harsh bitter/astringent flavors (which are really not our thing). 

TECHNICALS