Mandala Tea

I’m drinking the last of my sample of this tea from my last Mandala order. I have the 2013 “tea nugget” style. I am plotting an order soon (almost out of Special Dark! oh noes!!) so I wanted to finish up this sample and decide if I need to buy some when I place my order…

I’m really enjoying this today. It is rich and very smooth! I think I prefer this one’s flavor over the Phatty Cake! It is somewhat earthy but very clean. This is a shu I could drink regularly, though my favorite is still the Special Dark!

Swap sample sipdown!

I’m enjoying this very much today. I think I’m getting the hang of how to brew these loose puerhs. Now I just need to order some more of it :)

YAY! My first Mandala tea :) I’m very glad Kimquat sent me some samples in our swap to check out so I can decide what I want to order.

Well, I messed up this one. I was a little confused about the instructions and accidentally underleafed this. SO, I steeped it extra long…nevertheless I am very impressed! I think this might be one of the first “GOOD” puerhs I’ve tried.

I will be more careful with my other Mandala samples ;)

I had a cup of this before and after work today. Used pre-boil water for the first and second steep, for about a minute each. It’s light and lovely with a floral undertone. Kind of sweet and buttery in a way that reminds me of kettle corn—which is strange because I don’t like kettle corn, but I love this! Not as creamy as the milk oolong but very smooth. The steeping continues…

I admit it. I’m at home alone, drinking 3 overlapping teas. I got home from the gig, put on the water, prepared 3 small teapots, & went at it. I was also cooking dinner, which I could have done at Tony’s house. He’s probably wondering if I’m ever coming over tonight, & I am, in a few minutes, but I wanted to get a few teas in my system first.

I don’t care for this one. It has a background flavor of cherry cough medicine. It is a sample that I got from the Here’s Hoping TTB, & I suspect that it’s a sample that has been sitting around for awhile.
“But it’s Puerh,” you’ll say, & that is true. But it’s been sitting in a plastic baggie for awhile, buried in the HHTTB with an insane array of flavored teas, & I suspect that it absorbed something during it’s travels, even if they were short.

I rinsed it. I rinsed it again. blech. I ran a few steepings, took a sip of each, & then poured them out because that taste is still there, ruining what I am certain is a wonderful Shu. I’ll have to request a sample from Garret with my next order, so that I can enjoy the untainted version, because I’m pretty sure it’s a lot better than this!

Maybe one day Dexter3657 will come and make me pu’erh and I will at once understand everyone’s awe at this and I, too, will marvel at its deliciousness. Until then, dexter3657 should stop sending me pu’erh samples for they are wasted. Wasted.

Dry leaves smelled fishy to this novice. I rinsed longer than I should have probably, just to get rid of as much as I could. Then I steeped, multiple times. Now I have to caution you that in this case tea tasting does not equal tea drinking. First steep, wood. Second steep some sort of sea water. Third steep much of the same. And on it went.

Where is this cream, chocolate and berries?!? Where’s the caramel?

The moral is this. I shall no longer try to drink pu’erh until I have detailed steeping instructions, and maybe someone who knows what they’re doing next to me. Cause, like with most recipes, just reading the instructions doesn’t always mean everyone can have yummy results.

Dexter3657 thank you so much for showing me I am not ready for pu’erh, much less for Mandala.

Another sipdown from the HHTTB!
I used to drink a lot of green tea. That was before I surrendered to the Dark Side! But, the truth is, I still really love green tea. I don’t know why I don’t drink it more often.

This one is delicious! It looks like a Dragonwell to me. The flavor is nutty & green, & it leaves a wonderful fresh sweet aftertaste, especially under the tongue. There are also pleasant tongue numbing/thickening sensations.

Bazinga!

I’m not sure if this is the White Peony I’m drinking, but it’s the only one I see listed under the Mandala tab, so I’m putting my post here!

This is from the Here’s Hoping TTB. It’s a sample, labeled 2013 White Peony. Although white tea isn’t always my thing, it’s very nice, a pleasant departure from my obsessive black tea drinking, & really has a refreshing quality to it. It’s not as bland as some of the whites I’ve had, or else I’m just getting more tuned into to the subtleties of the white tea world finally? Probably not.

So yesterday I worked from home because the train line I usually commute on is having power issues and is running very limited service. Today, I’m trying out the limited service because working from home for the two to three weeks it will take to fix is just too much. In any case, I had access to my fancy teas and tea ware while it was still early enough for caffeine! And I’ve been meaning to try out this puer for a while now.
First impression was that this is extraordinarily light for a ripe puer. But it didn’t taste raw either. I love the fresh cut cedar aroma. I wish I remembered the experience better but drinking while working, even from home, is not helpful to the tasting experience. I was aware enough to note that this is an amazing puer that I like more than I thought I would.

Ok, about to brew some of this…I want a nice relaxing cup…and it’s jasmine…so we need fancy tea ware….

Opening the bag I would have to say I haven’t smelled a jasmine tea quite like this…I mean it’s jasmine and floral but it has this something about it….that makes my mouth water…like I need beautiful jasmine tea. And this smells beautiful.

It’s lovely. In fact compared to some other jasmine teas I’ve had…it’s on the light side with the floral. Very delicate and delicious. I’ll drink this on my day when I want just a touch of floral in my day.

I do say that the lingering taste in my mouth is barely floral at all…but very pleasant…it’s like you can just still smell the jasmine but not really taste it anymore….that’s the after taste.

It’s quite nice.

I drank this all evening, on & off.
I was busy, so I don’t really have any notes to share, but I wanted to drink it, since I drank the original Phatty Cake yesterday. I can’t really give a comparison of the two…but I love them both. I think the original is sweeter, but they are both tasty.
What I can say is this was a wonderful bold & rich contrast to the last couple of steepings of the Huang Zhi Xiang Dancong I was drinking all afternoon. The Dancong had me so dopey & mellow, & the Phatty Cake woke me back up a little. I drank several steepings before dinner, & several more after.
Yesterday I put the leftover leaves in a jar of water in the frig. I added tonight’s leaves to the same jar, as I didn’t really feel like the water had absorbed much flavor. I’ll drink their fusion tomorrow.

I used 2.5 heaped teaspoons for (approx.) 14 ounces of water, let it steep for a minute. I had to stay and watch the leaves dance around. BRIGHT bright green leaves. So pretty. It brewed up a very pale shade of greenish gold. Almost colorless. My taste in green tea has become very selective lately, for reasons unknown to me…but at first sip I immediately loved this. Oh MY. It’s very delicately sweet with a taste that makes me think of clear springs and morning dew. Slightly buttery, yes! Very slightly. Not grassy at all, but softly vegetal. I’m getting notes of honeysuckle. Not the taste, but the texture calls to mind the soft insides of flower petals. As it cools I catch that “hint of cinnamon” spiciness, but it’s very quiet and subdued. Demure. A very gentle and well-balanced tea, I think. The name suits it well. I love it more and more with each steep.
Holy crap. I need more of this now.

brewed this up right before taking the kids over to my MIL house….baby John’s first photo shoot…

I had visions of watching him coo at the cameras while I sipped on tea…much like my 4 years old did when she was a baby….

Not the case.

It went cold before I could sip…..

Well, from the cold sip….I could tell enough that it would be worth trying to steep it another time because it can’t be wretched….

tea fail.

This was my tea of the morning…and into the afternoon a little. Sipping it while dropping the kiddo off to school…sipping while working…sipping while baking…I got a lot done today (thanks oolong) :)

I think I liked it best hot….the dark roasted caramel and brown sugar almost?? It’s a good one… I have started to notice that I enjoy a dark or roasted oolong more than the green ones…I made it through at least 2 steepings and it held up great….
I will have to admit tho that I didn’t get to properly sit and really enjoy it enough to give it a fair rating…so I will just say that I will be drinking this again )

Ok I love oolongs…and I’m desperately trying to love milk oolongs…they sound so delicious in the descriptions…but I feel my pallet may still need training in the art of oolong….oolong is like wine tastings to me. So many notes and flavors unfolding…I’ll get it…

On to this….

It’s easy to like this one…by far the best milk oolong I’ve had. I have been drinking the David’s oolong a while and it just never seemed to make majic tho it is good. This one tho….we have a connection…a deep and emphatic passion.

It’s the sweetest and most buttery tasting one yet, I get the milk, the cream. the sugar, the savory, the oolongs natural vegetal…i mean it really unfolds…caramel…just good.

I made the mistake of leaving it alone too long and it cooled to room temp…Ok I was chasing a 4 year old and probably trying to feed a baby….anyway…

Should I dare say it got BETTER? It was SO sweet and creamy!! IT was like sweetened condensed milk…SO GOOD!

Loving this purchase…we will be in a relationship for the long haul…I can see it.

I decided to pick this tea up on a whim while I was in the store last week. They had this prepared as a sample, and I was really delighted by the sample. Honestly as much as I enjoyed the sample I had no idea how fun this tea would be to prepare at home. I put about 4g of tea in my gaiwan and for this particular tasting I used a lower temp water around 175 degrees. For the first steep I went with 20 seconds and added about 10 seconds per subsequent infusion. The first few infusions the smoky flavor was the most obvious note, but later infusions were more mild and surprisingly sweet. There was even an almost floral purfumey taste coming out that almost reminds me of an oolong. I’m currently on the eighth infusion and I could definitely get a few more. I’m really glad I decided to pick this up!

So after a few months of drinking this tea daily, I’m finally giving it a review.

This is the tea that helped me kick my coffee addiction. I’ve tried other black teas from many other sources, but this is the one I keep going back to.

I love this tea. The first steeping is complex but not overbearing. There’s a malty sweetness with hints of oatmeal, honey, and molasses. Like a previous reviewer stated, there’s no brassyness. It’s very smooth.

I steep this twice in the morning before doing anything. I sit and enjoy this tea. I then spend the rest if the day drinking, Or thinking about drink Mandala’s Milk Oolong!

Well I guess it would be unfair to claim I don’t like ripe pu’erh anymore.

I’m sluggishly preparing myself for my closing shift tonight and figured I’d give this one a try, now I’m on my third steeping.

I really enjoyed this one, thanks to Dexter for putting it in the tea box!

This tea is extremely intricate, and I mean that in the best way possible. I’m loving all the layers of flavors that reveal themselves along the way. Vegetal and floral tones pop out the most initially, but there is also a decadent buttery characteristic as well. I also tasted a bit of mango and peach, too. As far as oolongs go, this is fabulous. Each experience is different, so drinking it doesn’t get old in the slightest. I’m excited to see what else I’m going to find in this cup…

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I decided to try this tea, I only knew that it had a very high rating and oolongs are a tea I’ve been wanting to learn and taste more of. From my 1 cup which I have sampled so far, I can tell this tea and I will be getting along just fine. It’s bright, sweet, buttery, and vegetal with soft floral/ fruit notes, complemented by a clean finish. For being on the more “delicate” end of teas, it certainly doesn’t lack in complexity. I’m resteeping the leaves again momentarily to see what other flavors will emerge. Delicious!

This was my gongfu session tea of the day. It was a pleasure to drink, starting out nice & sweet, developing a creamy quality for awhile, & the later steepings were a kind of woody.

It’s also a sipdown! That’s 2 today, so I’m ending the day at 364.

I’ve been sipping this tea for an hour or 2.
It is sweet, smooth, & has a pastry quality to it.
The flavor is a little flat, but I’m pretty sure that is because my yixing is sucking up a lot of it!
I have enough to sample it again, but I’ll wait awhile & give the yixing time to absorb flavors from other Shu’s as well.
Then we shall see!
Much thanks to Garret for this generous sample!