Mandala Tea

Very solid, high quality shou puer.

no funkiness or fishiness here. Leaves are deep brown/black. Very clean, very high quality look and feel.

Brews up real dark, real quick.

I’m getting mostly mushroom on the first waves of quick infusions. There’s an underlying dried fruit sweetness, very subtle, but it’s there. Maybe fig, or dates. Creaminess too. Real clean, leaves the mouth refreshed, but nothing lingering around.

I’m tempted to put a drop of honey in, maybe next time, just to round it out a touch. Very solid component of a well stocked tea stash.

Sipdown!!

So I really don’t like pu’erh teas. Perhaps one day my tastes will develop enough that I grow to enjoy them but so far that has not happened. Nonetheless, Cavocorax was generous enough to share a sample of this with me so I figured it was at least worth trying it.

When I first sniffed the dry leaf, there was nothing offensive about the smell so that was comforting. I boiled the kettle, rinsed the leaves for 30 seconds, and that brought out the fishy pu’erh scent that I hate so nerves kicked in. I then steeped the tea for 30 seconds and the result is not as bad as I anticipated given the smell while rinsing. Luckily, there is no fishy taste in this cup however, it is not the cup of liquid chocolate that so many others seemed to experience either. Instead, it is a little bit mushroom and a little bit of dark chocolate and I don’t know about you guys but chocolate-covered mushrooms seems like a weird snack. Ultimately, though this is far more tolerable than other pu’erhs I have tried, I just don’t think I am a pu’erh fan. I am very grateful to Cavo for the chance to try this out though because it has received so much love on steepster lately that I was actually a bit curious. Plus, if I can’t enjoy this one, I feel it is safe to say that pu’erh is just “not my cup of tea” (sorry for that :P).

So I started a session with this one last night. And again the first thing I smelled on both the dry and wet leaf was pond water. I steeped this one up for the 30 seconds and holy darkness. For some reason I was expecting this one to be light. But it’s was almost black.

The liquor smelled just like the wet leaf, pond water, something I don’t remember Special Dark’s liquor smelling like. I’m thinking I definitely should have rinsed this. That first cup tasted similar to how it smelled, like pond water and mud. I ended up dumping half the cup. The next steep was a little better. Less pond and mud taste (I guess earthy in a wet way). Now I’m starting to get other notes, there’s a slight sweetness, and something not quite earthy but I’m not sure what it is.

The third steep, most of the pond scum smell and taste was completely gone and for the next three steeps the flavor continued to mellow and mingle and confuse but please my taste buds. My tongue is not refined enough to pick out flavors, but once I hit the third steeping I ha begun to relax into this puerh. It started to feel safe, like it was trying to show me a preview of could come if I continue down the rabbit hole that is puerh. Now I really think that a good rinse or maybe two would have eliminated those first two awkward cups and put me right into this sweet spot to begin with.

The 6th or 7th steep seemed a little bit weaker, and since by this point it was nearly 2am I decided to cold steep the last steep overnight. I strained and tried it first thing this morning, and detected a surprising note that I really wasn’t expecting and don’t know where it came from: grapes. This cold steeped and lightly sweetened taste like grapes and a tinge if cocoa, some of that almost earthiness, and I want to say browned sugar. The other notes were there in the hot cups but just seem more identifiable this time. But I don’t remember grapes last night, yet there they are this morning.

I still find it so amazing that a straight tea can have so many different notes, without adding any flavors.

This Wuyi is certainly a new one to me. The spicy flavor, or sensation, was present in the first cup during Gong Fu session but became more reminiscent of cinnamon after the second infusion. Light mineral taste and milky notes alongside a pleasant viscosity. Warming and relaxing qualities make it very suitable for post-work or pre-bedtime tea that won’t overstimulate the mind or stomach.
Each subsequent infusion evoked more cinnamon and milky quality with soft, sweet undertones. With initial 15 second infusions at 195 degrees Fahrenheit and gradually increased steeping times this tea provided eight infusions without compromising flavor.

This is definitely one of my favorite teas. It is very versatile, and every infusion seems to give me something new, and never disappointing. The smokiness is very prominent, but it doesn’t mask the tea’s sweet flavors.

Method: super shou

Aroma: Cocoa fo sho

Flavor: I had to get a little further in before I could taste the chocolate. But I was picking up some nice leathery notes and overall pleasantness before that. It’s been a little while since I first had this. I’m glad I didn’t give up on shou. Somehow I had a feeling that we would find a way to really click!

Method 1: 1.5 tsp, 4 oz, 208 degrees, seconds: 30, 45, 60, ru kiln gaiwan. Then I blended these together to make 1 cup of tea

Method 2: 1 tbsp, 8 oz, 208 degrees, grandpa style

Method 3: Slightly less than 1 tbsp, 8 oz, 195 degrees, 2 and 3 minutes, Forlife brew-in-mug strainer, Dr. Who mug

Dry Leaf Aroma: chocolatey forest. This smells like Pennsylvania forests when you’re out for a nice hike. But then someone came along and dumped chocolate in the forest!

Brewing Aroma: Cocoa and stuff. It smells pleasant, but earthy. I can’t pick out the exact thing it reminds me of.

Flavor: The first method used shorter steeps. It was good, but it didn’t knock me off my feet. I could taste some of the chocolate notes, but it didn’t seem to have as much complexity as I expected.

The second method was quite unpleasant. The package says you can’t oversteep pu’erh. Since I love grandpa style tea so much (lazy), I decided to just let it sit and see what happened. Well I beg to differ, but you certainly CAN oversteep pu’erh! LOL. I call this one: The Burninator. It tasted like burnt dirt.

The third method was the goldilocks. Finally, woo! I took a sample out at one minute, two minutes and three minutes. Two and three were the best. I think I actually liked two the best, but you can’t go back! So I drank it at 3 minutes. The flavor is kind of hard to describe. I can taste a little cocoa, and some earthy flavors, but I can’t put my finger on them. I haven’t had many pu’erhs, so maybe I’ll get better at that as I go along. It’s a very rich tea. I suspect it would go well with some decadent dessert. I’ll be trying that soon! I would definitely buy this again.

When I saw Mandala added this loose leaf pu erh to it’s site, I knew I’d be buying some sooner or later. Thanks to a 50% off sale it was sooner! My first impression was that this tea is young, I feel like it has not reached it’s full flavor profile… like there were some flavors in this tea lurking beneath the surface that time has not allowed to fully develop. I can tell this tea has great potential! The liquor was dark, much darker than I expected and I was pleased. The flavor was two toned with spice and and a smooth earthy sweetness. As I got into the 3rd and 4th steepings it hit me… this tea has some AMAZING cha qi!!! In fact I’d say this tea has the cha qi of an aged sheng. I’m probably going to go the delayed gratification route and keep this one for storage to allow it to develop it’s full flavor profile, sampling a couple times a year. I’m a big fan!

Very pleasant light green tea. It lacks bitterness and produces a calming cup. Comes from the nine famous mountains in china, a place home to monks that pray all day. This is a meditative tea that would be wonderful to enjoy in nature.

This is a tea that comes from a highly demanded tea region (Wu-Yi Mountain). This tea is grown on a rocky mountain which brings a unique tasting tea. Da Hong Pao teas can be some of the most expensive tea sold in the world. I do like this tea but its not my favorite Wu Yi tea. I do prefer the lesser oxidized version.

This is a high quality white tea. I do prefer the White Peony one that Mandala sales but this is a unique tea in that it will turn into a black tea if placed in storage. Its a complex tea flavor but overall a pleasant white tea.

I remember that TheTeaFairy suggested that I try a nice long steep with this fellow, so even though I would usually never dream of doing such a thing, I trust her judgement and went balls to the wall with an 8 minute steep.

Timer beeps, and I remove my “lid”. Holy moly, it’s as dark as my tar black soul. I of course had to sweeten it (sorry not sorry, I’m a sweets girl and how can I note sweeten my chocolatey love?). I maybe should have rinsed this, I didn’t last time, but this time I’m getting a bit of pond water. But even still, this is yum. Deep dark cocoa, a touch of earthy pu, and even some burnt sugar. As it cools, the burnt sugar comes out more and melds with a sort of caramel note. Yummy. I don’t know what method I like more.

As soon as the hot water hit this, and I got a whiff of pond water, I started to panic. What did I do? What did I get myself into? Why did I trust all the reviews. This isn’t going to taste sweet and chocolaty and caramelly. This is going to taste like licking pond scum. I stood there in fear during that 1st 30 second steep.

Tentatively, I took a sip. Nearly holding my breath, it seemed like it took an extra second for my mind to register what I was tasting. Hm, what’s this? This isn’t pond water at all! I don’t really know what to say about that first sip. I was baffled, no bad notes about it. I didn’t really taste any cocoa in those first few sips. It was much lighter than I expected, sweet, and almost caramelly. By the time I finished my first cup, I had decided I needed to skip class today and continue to experience this tea (I mean I didn’t have my notebook, that’s why I skipped class. Not because of tea. Good girls don’t skip class because of tea).

Second infusion, I went 45 seconds, and this time I got more cocoa notes. Again I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that puerh isn’t as dark and bitter and I guess straight coffee-ish as I expected. This is my first straight puerh, and the only other one I had was minty so I didn’t like it. But this? This is good.

I followed the increase by 15 seconds directions until the 5th steep, where I went up by a minute. MMM I’m definitely getting cocoa powder this time. And caramel. I drank about half the cup, and then saw the Ghiradelli Dark Chocolate with SeaSalt Caramel squares on the counter. I dropped on into my cup, and made up the 6th infusion (3 minutes) and poured that into too. Oh my decadence. This is like sweet sinful chocolate dessert in a cup. So chocolaty, with notes of caramel, some almost nuttiness, and a sort of earthiness. This is like a very complex and delicious hot chocolate. Oh my word. I’m sure I can get some more out of those leaves, but for now my tummy is nice and full and satisfied.

Not bad at all for what essentially is my first puerh, and my first Mandala order!

I am working at doing these reviews a little more imperfectly, because otherwise it will take me FOREVER to review all of the teas I want to review.

I got this as a sample from a friend: thank you!

I am glad I had an opportunity to compare this tea to early spring 2014 Yunnan Sourcing (YS) “Sun-Dried Buds” Wild Pu-erh tea varietal I have brewed up a number of times so far.

This tea was harvested in the late winter/early spring of 2011.

The dry tea is very similar in appearance and aroma to the 2014 YS tea varietal: largish green and white cluster-like buds, with light-brown edges, with the exception that there were no brown twigs (as there was with the YS version), and the Mandala version was not quite as green-ish in color as the YS version (not surprising as the Mandela version is three years older). There was very little aroma in the dry tea buds, but not much less than the 2014 YS tea varietal.

I used my ceramic 180 ml blue and white gaiwan, Stevia, approximately 7 grams of tea buds, 7 OZ water.
I started at about 175, 1’ and increased the temp a bit and added a minute, for each successive steeping, and so far I got the 5 steepings.

The tea liquor has a very light, clear yellowish-green color; it has a very similar aroma to the 2014 YS tea varietal: reminiscent of a forest. The flavor is sweet, spicy, somewhat fresh, with a hint of pine needles.

To me, in many respects this is like a white tea in terms of delicate flavor, sweetness, and freshness. But because this tea is technically a pu-erh, my understanding is that it should mellow with age (rather then going bad after a year or two), and to me that gives it a HUGE advantage over any typical white tea. Although this tea does not come across as fresh as the 2014 YS tea varietal (which I expected), overall, I am impressed that this 2011 version of wild Yabao tea buds seems to be able to stand its ground when going up against a much fresher version. It seems to have as much flavor, aroma, and staying power over multiple steepings as did the 2014 YS tea varietal. This tea is considerably more expensive the the YS version, but at least I know this one stands up well after three years.

I feel like this one is going waaaaaay over my head. It’s nice enough, it’s pleasant, but it’s SO light. It’s delicate and hay-like, sweet and creamy. The best description I can come up with is “coconut and cream”. Why coconut, I don’t know. It doesn’t taste like coconut but it reminds me of it, maybe because of the silky texture. I’m at a loss for words here. It’s nice, but it kind of leaves me wanting. I feel like I should be tasting much more than I actually am.

I’ll try a 4 minute steep instead of a 1-2 minute steep next time.

Method: 3 cones, 8 oz, 185 degrees, grandpa style

Dry Leaf Aroma: Black tea, a little malt

Brewing Aroma: I recognize something, but I’m not sure what it is. Dang it.

Flavor: Smooth, malty, not bitter. I will brew these properly eventually, but I purchased them to take to work specifically for this style of brewing because they are quick and convenient. I think I made a good choice!

sooooo i had this one yesterday and sadly i remember nothing in the midst of painting except that i had 8 or so steeps of this and was enjoying it thoroughly. Not great for other ppl as a review, but that tells me a bunch hahaha

This is the first tea I have tried from Mandala, it was sent as a sample in my order, and I’m pleasantly surprised by the complexity and flavor of the tea. There are muscatel notes, lightly sweet aftertaste (which evolves into Hui Gan in subsequent infusions), aromatic and flavorful notes reminiscent of decaying wood and forest, and an ostensible fresh baked bread taste.
Being fond of black tea I would certainly recommend this to anyone that enjoys smoother, less bitter black teas for late morning and early evening hours.
The Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA) content is uplifting and warming, and personally makes me slightly lightheaded , but in a pleasant “tea-drunk” way.
Unfortunately I’m short on time while writing this, and cannot do the tea justice, but this is certainly for tea drinkers that want afternoon, and possibly nighttime, black teas that provide an excellent flavor and experience.

Free sample with my order – thank you so much Garret and Jamie.
Sample is 8g , very generous.
I love it. Dark, sweet, thick and creamy. Very flavorful. I enjoyed it a lot and want to include it with my coming up order to take advantage of this crazy fabulous 50% sale.

This is a quick note. Trying this free sample fr Mandala – thank you so much
5g 100ml glass teapot 212F
Rinse/ pause/5/10/15/20
Dark brew, no off taste very smooth
Dried fruits , thick and delicious
I have no problem drinking it even on a hot day( don’t want to drink iced teas, too much flavor). Soothing especially since I’m eating not food of my choice( burgers, corn, potatoes, pies ). Recommended

This is one of my favorite ripe pu-erh’s! WOW! Extremely complex for a shou, and well balanced. There are initial overtones of earth and spice, with smoothness coming on the sides of the tongue and some sweetness as you finish the drink. The spice characteristic is unique to this tea, which I have not tasted in very many other pu-erh’s, and I enjoy it very much. I have retired this tea for now, storing one cake whole and another broken up to speed up aging. This tea should get even better with a couple more years of aging. I can’t wait to see what this tea brings as the years go by! I plan to sample every 4-6 months until I feel it’s fully ready. In the mean time, I bought some of the loose leaf variety for consumption now which I am eagerly awaiting from Mandala Tea. :) I really should buy a couple more cakes before it’s gone forever! Excellent, excellent tea!

Rich and dark, not too earthy, smooth with a sweet finish. This is one of my favorites from Mandala Tea. My only criticism would be it does not seem to steep as many times as some other ripe pu-erh’s, perhaps only 5-7 steepings but the first 4 are delicious!

I got this as a sample from a friend: thank you!

NOTE: This green tea was stored in a thin baggie for a week or so before I transferred it to a glass jar to showcase it on our kitchen table—in a spot where no direct light or sunlight could shine on it ; unfortunately, it ended up sitting there for almost a week before I brewed it up (I was originally planning to brew it up the day after I transferred it). So the storage on my end was less than ideal. I judge that’s not a lot of time to be in less than ideal conditions; still, although it’s not likely it lost a noticeable amount of its freshness before it made it to my gaiwan, it is possible.

The dry leaf looked like medium sized, gently curled leaf, with a few thin twigs; it did not have a very strong aroma, making me think right away if this was likely a 2013 harvested tea (as of this writing, their website has no harvest date for this tea).

I am guessing there was approximately 6 – 8 grams of dry tea, I used my standard green tea brewing parameters in my blue and white 180ml gaiwan, Stevia added.

……….1st: ~175, 1’
……….2nd: ~175. 1.5
……….3rd: ~180, 1.5’ (normally I go to 2’)

The tea liquor had a clear light-green color, with a very mild vegetal aroma; I’m not certain about this, but it didn’t smell fresh to me.

1st steeping (Using Brita filtered water): distinctive vegetal green tea flavor (unrecognizable at the moment) with a bit of bitterness on the roof of my mouth (though not unpleasant).
2nd steeping (Using tap water): not much flavor, and what was there tasted flat and bitter. However, I finally got descriptor for the aroma of the wet leaf: asparagus. That I like. Still, based on the lack of flavor, I am going back to filtered water for the 3rd.
3rd steeping (Using Britta Filtered water; due to the bitterness on the second steeping, I kept the time at 1.5’): it tasted better than the 2nd, yet still with some bitterness. I judged there was no justification to go for a 4th on this tea.

The appearance of the used wet leaf is what is most notable about this tea. I have dissected the wet leaf of literally dozens upon dozens of green teas (I actually used to take pictures of them), so I believe I have much experience to draw from in terms of what I judge to be quality Chinese green tea. After the first and second steepings the tea in the gaiwan appeared to have a beautiful deep green color and looked to me like quality leaf. Yet, once I dumped it out on the counter and looked closely at it I was a little surprised at what I saw. Yes, I am detail oriented, and so those reading this may find this is a bit much, but to me there are several interesting things to note. Most of the teas I have had are what I consider to be artisan, single-estate, loose-leaf Chinese tea. I have found that the leaf of single-estate teas to be of uniform size and color (I believe the leaves of single-estate teas come from the same variety of bush, are all picked within a relatively small time frame, and are chosen by a relatively strict standard as to size of the leaf).

First off, although there were lots of stems, many of which where large (not too uncommon), there were a few nice looking buds as well. I checked the description on Mandala’s website, and its not clear if this is ‘single-estate tea’ or not (with leaf of the same age and type of bush), yet I don’t believe I have ever seen a whole-leaf Chinese green tea where the leaf varies so much as in this tea: there are a number of large army green colored leaves along with a few much smaller and much lighter green colored leaves. It looked to me much like some of Teavana’s green teas I have dissected in the past. Furthermore, this tea does not have the fresh appearance that the rest of the green teas I have been drinking this spring have (a few of the leaves in this tea looked shriveled). Although Mandela has harvest dates for many of their teas, because I didn’t see a harvest date on their website for this tea, I assume it is not of the 2014 harvest (harvest dates for green teas in particular are important, because most green tea looses significant value—flavor, aroma, and freshness—after about a year or so).

Overall, although I liked the aroma and initial appearance of the wet leaf, I was not impressed with this tea. The flavor was lacking, and there was more bitterness than what I normally find in a green tea. Still, it may not have ‘showed up’ for me for a number of reasons, perhaps due to storage, and perhaps because, as some green teas are, this one is finicky and needs to be brewed in a very particular way (a way I did not use). In terms of value, I judge this tea is very highly priced at $8/OZ, as there are at least a few teas I can find that are fresh and at least the same quality, for much less (even through English language online venders). Still, for a number of reasons, including potential storage issues, and because this tea is probably from the 2013 harvest, my final judgement on this tea is inconclusive.