Mandala Tea

I need some Mandala love tonight!

This natural milk oolong is phenomenal…pure candy.

First, the dry smell is all pop corn and coconut milk. It doesn’t render that heavy dairy fragrance scented milk oolong often have, this is all natural goodness.

The first three steeps (gongfu style) are cotton candy and piña colada like, creamy and slightly fruity. The richness and sweetness really dominate.

Later, it morphs into a more floral green oolong, presenting lilac and orchid notes.

A fresh minty camphor taste is also present, slowly developing. It has lost some of its sweetness, which is a good thing, cause as you persevere into many short steeps, heavy and sweet would be just too much.

The taste lingers and lingers…

It’s making me really happy :-)

When I’m all done, I will put the spent leaves in a mason jar and cold steep in the fridge for 12 hours. Yep, this tea has a lot to give!

Backlog from yesterday…

Ahhh…Gongfu love in the afternoon…yes, being off work allows me to have tea sessions in the middle of the day if I choose to!

Dexter3657 sent me this generous sample. Me and milk oolong have a history. I have tried several, I like both the scented and the non scented version so I always keep a provision of both from two different companies. I thought I had find my favourite non scented milk oolong and have been sticking to it. Then came along Mandala, and all of a sudden we are caught in a love triangle. Yes this tea just blurred my focus, and made me question my current relationship.

First, the smell of the dry nuggets is quite interesting. It’s a mix of sweet and creamy, almost candy like. No sign of the strong dairy smell you get from a scented version.

As soon I took my first sip, I noted cotton candy on my pad. The sweetness I found in the first two steeps just evoked that. I get some nuttiness and creaminess, but not so much buttery notes. The milk oolong I’m used to is more floral than this one. This is fruitier.

At the 3rd steep, I got less sweets and a slight bitterness.

The 4th infusion brought the sweets back, some more present buttery notes and I got a very distinct fresh and clean mouthfeel, light camphor note, reminiscent of Ginseng oolong.

The subsequent steeps all brought their share of deliciousness and happiness. It eventually evolved in a more fruity and floral taste. I cold steeped the used leaves and 12 hours later, I’m having a delicious fruity and refreshing beverage. In conclusion, this tea is more complex than your average milk oolong. It transforms along the way, giving a lot of unexpected notes. Yet, the usual creaminess of such a tea stays present.

Thank you so much Dexter for this wonderful tea…I am grateful…but my budget might not be!

(Now, I have to hurt some other tea’s feeling by dumping it. Sorry, but a more exciting fellow milk oolong just came into my life and can’t be ignored!)

Mmm…tastes exactly like mushrooms in basmati rice to me. Loving this (and the lack of smokiness which I find too frequently in mini tuochas…)

I feel very awkward submitting my first tea tasting note. I do not have the ability to tell what sort of taste undertones that a tea may or may not have. All I can tell you is if I like a tea or not. Nor am I a great writer who can write flowing reviews (I am an engineer). Now with that disclaimer, here we go. As you can read in my bio, I love pu’er tea. I got hooked on pu’er when I visited Shanghai with my wife in 2008. When I first tasted this tea I was right back in Shanghai at a very nice dinner that we had in the French Concession. The flavor is bold with multiple, yet unknown to me, undertones. This is the tea I fell in love with and will be buying more.

Not bad, quite different from another red robe tea I tried which I didn’t really enjoy (thepuritea). Strong roasted hay flavor, very autumnal. I generally don’t like smokey/roasted teas but this one would be ok in certain moods. If you like such flavors this one is hard to beat.

Perhaps a nice everyday puer, but wasn’t as there flavor-wise as some of other Mandala’s offerings imo

Went to work for five hours. Picked up the last of the groceries and stuff I needed on the way home. Tidied the house. Made beef vegetable soup for lunch tomorrow. Prepped all I could for dinner tomorrow. Did the dishes, cleaned the kitchen. And even though I have a couple of little things left to do – I think it’s tea time.
Settling in tonight with some Special Dark. It’s fantastic as always. Liquid chocolate with just a hint of earth and mineral. Awesome.
Wishing all my amazing Steepster friends a safe and happy Holiday Season.

https://www.instagram.com/p/_sfZG1uE4D/?taken-by=dex3657

In continuation of “enjoy your teaware day” – I am soaking my very favorite yixing pot in Special Dark right now.
I am also drinking Special Dark out of my starfish perfect mug – have to put a really dark tea into a white mug – that makes me happy.

I stole some of the tea that I was going to use to soak the pot – so it was steeped in a brand new clay pot. You can taste the clay, but that’s ok. It adds a little mineral quality to this sweet pu’erh, and that really works for me. This is fantastic. I am really looking forward to having more Special Dark out of this special pot. Why have I not done this sooner?

An incredibly caring Steepster friend is concerned that all I’m drinking are samples from other people, and that I should take some time and enjoy some of my favorite teas. I’m searching for the great teas, but not enjoying the one’s I’ve found. I’ve decided to “sort of” take that advice.
I have sent samples of this out to several people, and assume that it is going to be amazing, but I’ve never actually drank it. So tonight I’m taking a ME tea night to explore the dark side.
I threw about 2.5 tsp of this into my gravity steeper, gave it a quick wash and then let it steep – I’ve read lots of review that say that this is AMAZING if steeped for a long time. I’m watching and waiting, and it’s getting darker, and darker, and I chicken out at about 4 minutes. OK 4 minutes is a LONG steep for pu’erh – at least for me…
Wow this is crazy – unlike any other pu’erh I’ve tried. There really isn’t any of the musty/earthy typical pu’erh taste – it is just deep dark chocolate – maybe a hint of “pu’erh” in the back but it’s just adding depth to the chocolate. OK I’m a believer.
I add another couple of tsp of new leaf to the old leaf (I don’t care it’s my tea night I can do what I like) – gave it another quick rinse and let it steep for NINE minutes.
OMG – this is unsweetened cocoa from a fine chocolatier. I add about a tsp of sweetener and just a splash of milk – just enough to change the color. This is my new favorite chocolate tea. I love this.
Now what do I do? I think I’m going to take the leaves and toss them in the fridge to cold steep. If anyone hasn’t tried it – cold steep pu’erh is crazy good.
As always, thank you Mandala for another amazing tea experience.

So this was a gift during a trade with someone who’s name I can’t find. Thank you Mystery Person!

Generally speaking, I am NOT a fan of pu’erh. I am especially not a fan of Shu pu’erh. But I have it and I thought that I should try it. I had a little chunk of it with a label in a little plastic bag so here goes. I’m using my little yellow single person teapot and cup with the cats on them. I have a matching set of mugs, but the cup sits below the teapot when it is resting so I have a drinking vessel already.

I hope the pu’erh purists will forgive me, but I added a bit of sugar to each infusion because otherwise bitterness overwhelms everything. I will try to do this justice.

1st steep: 10 seconds: boiling water. This tastes really earthy and I’m not sure how to describe it. I’m not entirely turned off by it, and I’m rather surprised about that. I think I’m also getting a bit of that tea chaqi that Terri keeps mentioning. I’m feeling a little light-headed anyway and this after not even a cup of it.

Had to pour out the second steep because of reasons. Third infusion is 15 seconds, boiling water, and it’s not really noticeably darker than the first. I poured through a strainer because the parts keep coming off since the teapot doesn’t have it’s own strainer. This infusion is still a dark orange/brown colour and as I’m tasting it, the flavour has thinned out a bit but it’s becoming a bit more unpleasant for me. I think I will stop drinking this now and apologize for wasting this likely very nice tea when I truly have not developed a taste for shu pu’erh.

Nooooo! Why do I have to be the one with the first note?!? Me! A total newbie! One who is determined to like ripe pu’erh and drinks it solely because , well, breaking in a horse is tough, right?

Again, many thanks to Dexter3657 for the sample. I am certain this is good pu’erh. Maybe even excellent pu’erh. Also, according to mrmopar who I’ve sought out for advice I should be trying a good pu’erh at least three years old so that it’s starting to mellow a bit. You see, I really didn’t want to purchase pu’erh from unknown sources (or even known) without knowing for sure it is good pu’erh. I mean, I’m already struggling. I’d hate to struggle and then find out I’ve been drinking shitty stuff that’s just not going to be tasty no matter what you do. But how to know for sure? Well, Dexter3657 swears by Mandala and mrmopar steered me towards menghai. As luck would have it dexter sent me a piece of this cake, which fits all the criteria I’ve been presented with. It’s ripe, it’s at least 3 years old and it’s menghai sourced by mandala. How can it not be good?

So here I am, steep number 4. I made it this far!

I am certain I overleafed because I don’t have a digital scale so 5grams got eyeballed. Also I used less than 2 cups of water.

The first steep was my favourite. (30 seconds after a short rinse). Gorgeous reddish brown colour, kinda like clay. Did only barely smelled fishy. Which I need to say, because I forgot, the dry leaf to me smelled like smoked/cured whitefish. So yeah, I was surprised. Not fishy! I can drink it although I think the days where I actually look forward to this are rather faraway.

Second steep. (1 minute) Uh-oh. It has darkened. Like coffee dark. But happily, I can drink this because it DOES NOT smell. And I am not sure what I taste. And it’s chewy. I think.

Third steep was the same as the second in colour of the liquor and its taste.

Made it to steep four, kept steeping times not much longer than a minute because I was afraid. It’s cooled because there is only so much I can drink in one sitting. It tastes a little fishy. I cannot get any subtler notes or anything. Patience, grasshopper.

woohoo! A few more practices and who knows, I could actually be joining the little league. Well, maybe the bush league first.

Gosh. I am not looking forward to tomorrow’s practice but we must press on!

Thank you to dexter, mrmopar and of course mandala for providing a source of tea we can actually trust when it comes to quality. Maybe there are others out there but hey, for me if it ain’t broke, why fix it? Also known as why look for better when you have the best?

Omgish loving this sample :) amazing aftertaste, creamy and makes me think of buttered green veggies (where the veggies are there to emphasize the butter, not the other way round). Quite different from my other much loved puers!

hmm, I prefer this to the special dark now

A pleasant surprise! I didn’t love the GABA oolong, but this does add something my black tea spectrum – as described, it IS warm and comforting, very smooth, maybe savory? It feels like a lazy/rainy morning tea to linger over while resolutely not going outside. Or maybe an after dinner tea to settle the stomach. I may just have to keep this one around. And it’s definitely worth trying.

So, from someone almost entirely new to pu’er, I’m a fan. And I can see why people become so devoted. We’re getting a lot of ‘light’ and ‘fresh’ type reviews from the pu’er devotee crowd, and that’s absolutely right, but from the ‘newer to pu’er’ perspective, it still has that pu’er funk in a way that leaves you wanting more. This is a bugger since I’m consciously putting off my anticipated future plunge into pu’er, and I can already feel the cravings coming on. For now, the plan is just to keep this one in stock as long as possible, since it’s hard to imagine being any happier with a single pu’er on hand.

I like this tea. I really, really like it. I’m pretty challenged at describing black teas, since my favorites all seem to be varying proportions of ‘sweet,’ ‘malty,’ ‘smooth,’ and ‘raspy.’ And I like all of those things. I guess the trait my top three have is that those qualities are also ‘balanced.’ I’ve started my black tea explorations with Mandala, and my top three are this, Golden Needle, and Black Beauty. I think I slightly prefer Black Beauty to this because it has less astringency, though Pure Bud is gentle too. I will absolutely finish up this deliciousness, but I think one of the others will be my house black tea, at least for now.

Tasted pretty much like a good strong pu erh should, in my opinion, though I can’t really say I noticed anything that set this one apart from the others I have had. It tasted fine, and deep and rich and only a little bit fishy. I should add that I did not rinse the leaves, nor did I steep this one gong fu style. Perhaps I’d have a different tasting experience with this that way, though as this is just a small sample, I won’t really have the opportunity. I’ll see if I can save the leaves for a third steep tomorrow.

I’m not sure who to thank on this one…it comes from OMGsrsly but the package has stuff Sil sent her to pass on to me, so it could be either.