Mandala Tea
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Mmm, definitely quite reminiscent of an unsweetened, rich, dark chocolate.
Not sure if it’s just my mind making things up after reading the description of this tea being made in cotton bags, but I did suddenly think of linens or cloths in the aftertaste. Not in a bad way, of course. More of a comforting, freshly air-dried in sunlight cloth way.
Of course, it’s finals week for me and it could just be the stress getting to me. Man, I can’t wait for this week to be over.
Floral, nutty, creamy. . .my type of oolong!
oh man, when I said that to my self in my head, I thought of the recent toaster strudel commercials. Please do not read the above in the voice of the creepy little boy from those commercials! lol
Thanks for sharing this tea with me stephanie. i love it! :)
prepared western style (I don’t have any gaiwan)
A strong,malty and lightly smoked tea.
I was just like …oh how many pearls should I use for my mud and decided to go for 5, it was a good choice.
Thanks to justjames for sending me this lovely tea
Preparation
Hello French cousin :-) Missed you!
Thank you :) There is a guy at work who is moving to Montréal in January and I think every time…he may cross the way of TheTeaFairy…
hahahah! That is so cute! Well, at this time a year, I go to montreal only to visit my mom…I’m in my phase «hibernation à la campagne»! I’m only an hour away from montreal but being up north, I got 40cm of snow this week and they got almost nothing. But no worries, your friend will get to experience Canadian winter, in January there will be snow in Montreal for sure. Here’s what my backyard looks like today, snowwwww!!
Hi you French speaking beauties! Those pearls are a little smoky I think too! You have a lot of snow TeaFairy. You are a snowfairy I think by now. We don’t have snow down here probably until after the New Year, but maybe a dusting.
Bonjour, Bonnie chérie! Yes, at this time a year, I turn into the Snowfairy, oui, oui!
I thought you were getting lots of it too in Colorado…
No no pardner. Out West, this cowgirl won’t git snow fer a bit.
lovely snow :) I am jealous :)
I was working on a yixing pot full of this tea while I made lunch and later on relaxed watching a live owl cam on youtube. Lots of hooting!
Yum, like I said before, I need to review this tea. Super tasty and creamy, I highly recommend this pu’er!
Well, off to the airport to pick up my dad, who’s flying in from Vancouver for the holidays.
I love owls. I find them irresistible :)
Have a blast with your dad! I’m happy that you are enjoying this tea! I really have found that the cakes of this tea are really opening up flavor-wise over the last couple of months. Just wait another year. There will be no stopping this ripe tea! Thanks for the write-up, my dear!! Grateful, as ever, G.
For someone who hates humid-aged tea, would you still reccomend this one?
this one isn’t humid tasting as far as I remember.
I bought an 1oz of this pu’er with my last Mandala order. I snuck a bit in my travel tumbler on my way onto the cruise and it was fantastic! Super creamy!
Anyways, I wanted a pu’er to drink while I cook and bake for Thanksgiving. I fired up the kettle when I was working on the pumpkin pie (while the turkey was getting put into the BBQ for smoking). I got at least 6 resteeps up to having my yixing pot next to me on the table at dinner. I love how this tea is earthy, yet mellow sweet. The creamyness is my favorite part, it’s like drinking milk!
After dinner, I ordered a whole cake since Mandala’s Black Friday code kicked in. I really want to to a full blog tea review on this pu’er sometime, just yeah, this pu’er is awesome!
Preparation
This makes me so happy to know that you are digging this tea. I am obsessed with it, myself, unable to let a day go by without drinking it. The entire blend was sent to a lab and 3rd party tested. This is as clean as tea gets: zero parts per million of anything other than tea! This is what we are focusing on. I have also recently secured more mao cha for further pressings that will happen in 2014. So when I read your reviews, I feel even more validated that we are on the right trajectory for creating teas that are truly satisfying the great people who are our customers! Thank you for this.
Your pal,
Garret
Keep those tasty pu’ers comin’ Garret and I’ll be flailing about with my pu’er pick buying them!
Additional notes: I’m finishing up this pu…. I never really loved it the couple times I tried it. But this time around I used more leaves to finish it. I never thought it tasted DARK enough. Reading my older tasting note I said it tasted like “unsweetened chocolate” which reminded me of SPECIAL DARK from a certain chocolate company… so possibly I just figured out the name now that the tea is gone?! I thought the name meant that it was dark in color… and it was special… haha. I don’t know HOW that went over my head, as I love dark chocolate. Maybe it didn’t quite taste like that deep chocolate flavor when I was only using a teaspoon of leaves? The dark chocolate does seem to fade by the second and third steeps though. The leaves are so odd looking for a ripe pu-erh… they look like a fuzzy golden yunnan and it does seem to get a tiny bit astringent like a black tea might. The third steep was smooth enough though, as a black tea certainly wouldn’t be after ten minutes. The 76 rating is accurate, even six years later.
Steep #1 // 1 3/4 teaspoons for a full mug // 12 minutes after boiling // rinse // 2 minute steep
Steep #2 // 7 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep
Steep #3 // just boiled // 10 min
2019 Sipdowns: 47
Thanks Terri Harplady for sending a bit of this to try along with the HH teabox! I used one teaspoon of leaves… these leaves just look chocolatey.
Steep #1 // cooled the water a few minutes // 1 min
This cup looked very pale in color… maybe I wasn’t supposed to let the water cool at all. The flavor wasn’t strong enough for me! I definitely should have steeped longer. I don’t see anything special OR dark with this one. I’ve had some pu-erhs that have been pitch black in color after seconds. The flavor is so mild it is tough to describe…
Steep #2 // cooled after a couple minutes // 3 min
This cup was darker… the color of root beer! The flavor was better too, but still not the strongest pu-erh I’ve had. It would be a nice intro pu-erh for anyone to try. The flavor does have hints of unsweetened chocolate and some cinnamon actually.
Steep #3 // just boiled // 10 min
Hmm… still not super dark. But the flavor is pleasant… hard to discern from the pumpkin bread I had while sipping though. Not dark enough for me! But I can say there was no ‘over steeped leaves’ flavor or anything.
If only I knew the perfect way to steep this one! But I have one more teaspoon to try with….
I like a loooong hot steep and a lot of leaf for this one. KAPOW it gets dark! The serving size is supposed to be a whole tablespoon I think :(
Aw, I had a feeling I wasn’t using enough leaves.
:( Maybe you can get a tasty 4 oz cup with the last tsp. Let it steep as long as you can stand to!
I’ll try that, if I remember!
Love this tea!
The flavor is a nice malty brew with caramel and pecan notes with a silky texture. What I enjoy most about the Flowering Cones is it can take a beating: when I was on my cruise I’d just toss a few in my travel mug and let it infuse away without worry of oversteeping.
I personally prefer a longer steep with this tea, but the short 1 through 5 minute steeps were pretty good and I got quite a bit of tea from two little cones.
Full review on my blog, The Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.com/flowering-cones-black-tea-mandala-tea-oolong-owl-tea-review/ Black Tea Week with Sunset Owl (shhh, he’s missing feet!) I took some cool pictures of this blooming tea, so check it out!
Preparation
Boo! After yesterdays long steeping run with this pu’er, I put the leftover leaves to cold steep in the fridge overnight. And boo, I must of steeped the flavor right out yesterday as I didn’t get much flavor in my cold steep.
(see previous note for review)
Preparation
Yes, it’s Oolong Owl Black tea week, but I need some shu pu’er while I do Operation: Clean House for Thanksgiving. Good time to crack open some pu’er samples too!
I found this pu’er to be similar to Yunnan Sourcing’s 2012 Dragon on Jing Mai (my review http://oolongowl.com/2012-dragon-jing-mai-puer-yunnan-sourcing-oolong-owl-tea-review/ ) as it has similar abrasive clay and campy notes in the first few steepings with a gorgeous deep orange red colour. They are also jing mai tea mats, which I didn’t know until sitting down to write this, hoot!
However, I much prefer Mandala’s Year of the Dragon as it is much more mellow, no fermentation weirdness and creamy notes in mid to later steepings. The creamy notes are fantastic and this tea just gets better and better each steeping. I’d say Mandala’s pu’er is more of a cuddly mother dragon one whereas the Yunnan Sourcing one is more of a scary bite first ask questions later dragon!
Preparation
Another cup that i finished off this morning. I’m still trying to actively get to my sipdown goal by the end of the year, and I am behind. Limiting my purchases as much as possible is helping and i think i have a plan for my puerh which i should be able to work on in July, since i have a LOT of puerh samples that i need to get through.
I’m still crushed by the loss of special dark…it’s really made me less excited about tea lately. First butiki goes away….dragon pearl from mandala go away…now special dark….verdants 2014 harvest were lackluster compared to previous years….2015 so far seems to be a wet year which means buy and then don’t drink for a while… bah.
another great cup of tea this morning while i clean up the kitchen, do a little work and get it ready for my other half to then wake up and cook me breakfast! lol this is pretty much par for course when we have a day off together on the weekend as i’m a morning person and he’s a night owl. So i get up, prepare the kitchen, make coffee and bring it to him in bed…then he gets up and makes my delicious breakfast to go with said coffee :) it’s perfect. Today we’ll be doing that and then i suspect it’ll be an extended bike ride down to high park to check out the cherry blossoms for fun :)
another backlog from yesterday – love these things! Probably the only “blooming” tea i’ve ever enjoyed hahaha largely because it’s a black tea :)
The David’s bloom teas are all black teas but they are flavored. Not the greatest tea I have ever had but they are pretty and taste alright. I can bring you some to try :)
i’ll be tossing in a few of this for you guys. Noticed you guys haven’t tried many mandala teas heh
So I am waiting to bring you your teas since my sister is on a trip right now and found a tea store. I shall be sharing those with you as well :P
I also enjoyed these, & will have to restock. They are especially convenient to keep a few in the purse, so that if I go out to breakfast & they don’t have a decent tea, I can toss one of these in my cup. No filter needed!
mmmmmm i rather like this one from Mandala. Not only are they really fun to watch brew as they turn into neat star like sort of tea bundles of yum, but they’re tasty and malty and just downright delicious!. I enjoyed this one quite a bit today since it’s been a while since i last had some :)
that settles it. i prefer this western brew 4-5 cones for 4 mins or so rather than gaiwan. heh I saved one little cone to try out with my gaiwan and while it’s a pleasant enough cup, i like the depth of flavour you get from a western brew much better. :) thanks for the share terri!
