Xiao Huang knows his Puer tea pretty well.  He works in the local Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision, but tea his passion.  Sometimes he brings some of his own tea to our shop for us to drink. Recently, he has been asking for this year’s Bulang Peak, which he is convinced is really Lao Ban Zhang, but for some reason, we have chosen to hide the fact.

This is interesting for the fact that people’s notion of what Lao Ban Zhang, or any other tea for that matter tastes like, is highly variable; determined as it is by experience –  i.e. which teas one has drunk, as well as the actual experience of drinking it – how one understands and assimilates the exerience of drinking tea.