TeaHQ

Lao Ban Zhang

A village on Bulang Mountain whose sheng pu-erh commands the highest prices in Yunnan. Its reputation rests on an aggressive bitterness that resolves into an unusually strong returning sweetness.

老班章China1400–1900 metresAlso called Banzhang

Elevation

Recorded at 1400–1900 metres.

How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.

When it is picked

A spring pick with the largest price differential of any village in the pu-erh trade, which is precisely why the village name is the most counterfeited in Chinese tea. Autumn material from the same trees exists and sells for far less, and a great deal of what is labelled with the village is neither.

How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.

How the name is written

Also transliterated as lao ban zhang. Romanisations of a district name vary by system and by vendor, and a packet spelling one way is not describing a different place.

Teas this region is known for

  • Bulang sheng pu-erh — Aggressively bitter young, with a returning sweetness — hui gan — that arrives seconds after swallowing and is the whole point. Not a tea to judge on a first mouthful.

Other teas recorded from here

Other growing regions in China

The neighbouring districts are the useful comparison: they share a country, a grading convention and often a cultivar, so what differs between them is closer to terroir than anything a cross-border comparison can isolate.

Sources

  • TeaHQ editorial synthesis — TeaHQ

This page is TeaHQ’s own synthesis throughout. No external document stands behind the elevation band, the climate note or the character described above, which is why each carries its confidence in the open.

How TeaHQ handles sources

Written comparisons

Where TeaHQ has set this region against something it is routinely confused with, and argued the differences out in full.

  • Bingdao vs Lao Ban Zhang — The two most expensive village names in Yunnan, one in Lincang and one on Bulang Mountain in Xishuangbanna. They are bought for opposite reasons — one for the absence of bitterness, the other for its intensity — and both are faked on a scale that dwarfs their actual production.