Story of the expensive tea Laobanzhang

@teawish.co Most expensive tea Laobanzhang. #chinesetea #teaculture #puerh #yunnanbaiyaocapsule ♬ original sound – Derry@Teawish

Hi Guys, today I wanna share a special tea with you. It’s called laobanzhang, one of the most expensive teas in China. You see, this is the tea, I just received it from my supplier.

Before I brew it for you, I want to talk a little bit about its shocking story. This is one of the most expensive teas in China. For the leaves I received, the market price is around 2000 USD per kilo. But in the village, there is a king of the tea plants. It costs around 100,000 USD per kilo.

The name of the tea Laobanzhang is actually the name of the village. A few years ago, it was an extremely poor village in Yunnan province of China. Some villagers even had to go to city for begging to survive. After the year 2000, Pu-erh Tea became popular gradually in china. Especially Gushu cha got very hot in sales with much higher prices. Gushu means ancient trees, which refers to the tea plants with more than 100 year old. The more years it counts, the more expensive the price will be. I even visited some trees over 1000 years old and the oldest one I met in Daxueshan is 2700 years old.

The village Laobanzhang has many ancient trees, and the leaves feature a special taste that are recognized by the market as the best tea of Pu-erh. In the year of 2000, the price of the leaves in Laobanzhang was only 1 USD per kilo. It increased by 2000 times over 20 years. The tea plants are owned by 112 families in this village. You can’t imagine how this will influence the life of the village. From poverty to millionaire, it only took them 10 years.

Now I show you a picture that was a big topic in 2014 in China. It’s about a 70-year old tea farmer piled a load of cash at her yard. Why did she do that? Because she sold a lot of leaves. She had no bank account and only accepted cash. She stored the cash at home but the humidity was high in that area. The cash went moldy so she had to put it under sunshine.

The elder generation can’t read and write. They don’t know how to deal with banks. And there was no bank at all near the village, even there was not piled roads to the village some time ago. But, they just became very rich, for the leaves. Younger generation started learning how to spend money. They spent money on gold, jewelries, fancy cars, expensive trips to Beijing and Shanghai. They built new houses in the village. They invested a house in the town. After, they invested an apartment in the county center, then an apartment in the city city center. Finally maybe invest an apartment in Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan province. What else they can do? Gaming, gambling, and addicting with some harmful stuff.

If they don’t spend up this year’s load of cash, another load of cash will come again in next year. Being rich is not easier than being poor for these people. Can you see that?

Ok that’s enough for today. I will brew this tea and share it with you in my next video. Follow me and I will see you soon.