Menghai Tea Factory (Mandala Tea)

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Recent Tasting Notes

Brews a dark coffee brown. So sweet, rich and delicious! Hard to describe but completely smooth and mellow.
The last of a sample from a tea friend last year – thank you for sending this – I loved it!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BGkjyvkDR4_/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BGkkrlCDR7s/

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This delicious shu offers a very pleasant mix of flavors – dates, spices and a gentle woodiness. The first two cups are dominated by a nice earthiness but the sweetness, fruitiness and spiciness build quickly throughout the following infusions. No fermentation flavors at all. Very warming cup which is full of complexity throughout the tea session. Solid longevity – good for many resteeps ( I enjoyed eight flavorful cups today). This session reminded me that Menghai Dayi definitely offers many smooth and rich shu puer productions.

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 15 sec 10 g 4 OZ / 120 ML
Kirkoneill1988

try this one too :D its very tasty with camphor and mushroom notes.

http://steepster.com/teas/yunnan-sourcing/48693-2006-nan-jian-phoenix-ripe-pu-erh-tea-mini-brick

here is my best review on it

Ru Yao dragon teapot gongfu:

Dry leaves: smells musty and slightly earthy.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BACqRWMp48r/

Wet leaves: smells like wet fall leaves, Forrest floor and earthy. Slightly musty.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BACulu8p44Y/

Light steep: I taste light earth and light fall leaves. Medium camphor, No mushrooms and minor minerals.
Very tasty!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BACsMW7p4yM/

Medium steep: I taste earth, medium camphor, medium mushrooms, medium minerals, strong Forrest floor and strong fall leaves.

Quite tasty!

Heavy steep: medium minerals strong earth, strong Forrest floor, strong fall leaves, medium mushrooms and medium camphor.

Extremely tasty!

All in all, this tea is still amazing.

I still rate this tea a 100! Definately recommend this both western and gongfu style! :D

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This classic Menghai Dayi blend is a lighter fermentation shou and considered a standard setter. It does a good job of delivering on the typical characteristics of the well known Dayi factory shous – blend of larger and smaller leaves and pieces, dark reddish brown tea soup, appealing smooth and mellow sip with rich flavor, woody sweet aftertaste, good durability for resteeps. Already six years of aging but it has the strength of character to continue to improve with age.

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 7 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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I had a really nice session with this last night. The sweet date/raisin notes are nice, and the Shou is smooth. I got more sweetness from smelling the lid of my gaiwan! I really like this one, but the cake is so tightly compressed, it’s intimidating. I broke more off than I needed last night just so I wouldn’t have to next time. It was kind of therapeutic, ha!

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This is probably the oldest puerh I’ve tried so far. It had such great reviews and was very affordable, so I picked up a cake in my last order. It comes beautifully packaged…almost didn’t want to break the seal and keep it that way like my husband likes to do with some of his collectors items. I used to think that was ridiculous, but I can see it now (don’t tell him!). ;)

I had a really rough time picking pieces off this cake to brew….and yes, there was blood, from my little pinky! I also ripped the nice paper! Nooo! Note to self: get a puerh breaking tray.

This brews up super dark. The minute I poured water over the leaves I got this hit of sweet raisin in the aroma! Ooooh!

The taste is smooth and dark and the sweet raisin/date notes come in at the end of the sip in the aftertaste. Yum!

Definitely more dominant sweetness of raisin and dates in the 5th steep. So good. Very glad to have this in my cupboard, but I’m a little scared for my next cake breaking session!

boychik

Do you have a pu pick? I have a pu knife and pu pick and sometimes I need to use both when its very tightly compressed. Pls be careful. I once stubbed myself with steak knife. After that I got a pick. Yea tray helps too

Tealizzy

No, I’ve been using a cheese pick thing. I have a proper pick on my wishlist. Oh, and a tray! ;)

mrmopar

Yah this is a good shou.

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84

another day….another puerh. :) This one comes from Boychik I chose this one to drink today, while i putter around the house getting ready for this afternoon’s meet up. Bonny is visiting here so a few of us are getting together this afternoon to hang out. :)

So far this has been a really smooth journey. This isn’t BOLD, in your face sort of puerh…it’s a mellow, soothing, relaxing sort of drink. more to come likely once i get home.

boychik

glad you liked it. have fun!

Sil

i’m just glad i’ve had a chance to actually drink the rest of the samples you sent me without feeling rushed heh. Still thinking about the cake from yesterday… noms.

boychik

I had a sample today which blew my mind. The color and clarity, and flavors like baking spices. It’s 2007 GuMingXiang Nannuo
http://instagram.com/p/uoLO7qBwvj/
The samples of pu ppl sharing w/me are too good. I want them all. Hubby tested this Nannuo and said good. Let me tell you man till recently was saying tea is a tea. Give me some sugar!

mrmopar

Tell Bonnie we have missed her on here..

Sil

heh realised i typed bonnIE when i meant BonnY…aka vacounver bonny not to be confused with colorado bonnie. eep! so confusing. we had a great time though. Kitenna; Indigobloom; myself and Bonny all managed to meet up. Cavo and VariaTEA coulldn’t make it unfortunately :(

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Delicious shou! Completely funk-free with some nice raisin notes. Very nice stuff :)

Cheri

funk free is always important

Starfevre

don’t you want to get down in funkytown?

Stephanie

lol…I enjoy funkytown just not in my shou! ;)

mrmopar

They tend to lose the “funk” as they age. Some producers "hold"their tea to market to allow some of this to dissipate. This is a really nice one.

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88

This tea was pretty good, as to be expected from a Dayi shou. I used 8g in my 185 yixing for a nice since I wanted a strong tea this Sunday morning. Strong dark liquor, almost black (I love it when a shou comes out dark black!) with notes of leather, raisin, cocoa, and perhaps a little sawdust (or at least the texture was reminiscent of sawdust in some way, maybe not the taste… I don’t want that to sound bad as sawdust is not particularly yummy lol). I noticed a little cooling on the mouth after drinking which lingered for a few minutes, and not terribly strong qi but present. I probably didn’t like it as much as others here but it is a good tea.

Flavors: Cocoa, Leather, Raisins, Sawdust

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 8 g 6 OZ / 185 ML

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88

Yummy yummy. Menghai makes some good tea.

I tell you what, I think this might be the best Shou I’ve tasted so far. There’s different kind of Shou for different kind of folks.

For me, this is what I like. No funkiness, very little wood, slight hit of sweetness, smooth and creamy.

Wet leaves are just like freshly polished shoe leather. You get a little bit of that in the flavor. Cake is real tight but I got off a nice couple chunks with a knife.

This is all good and a quality product from Mandala.

Flavors: Creamy, Leather, Raisins

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 0 min, 15 sec 5 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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6g 100ml glass gongfu pot 212F
Rinse/pause/5/7/5/5/7/10 sec etc
Wonderful thick luscious shou. Rich with dried fruits, leather, some wood . Also detected some milk chocolate notes. So smooth and clean. Delightful. Really enjoyed after endless sheng sessions.
Many thanks to my generous tea friend. Your samples are always great.

http://instagram.com/p/uTUuIzhwtB/

http://instagram.com/p/uTWhDdhwgT/

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 6 g 3 OZ / 100 ML
Fjellrev

Beautiful pot!

Kirkoneill1988

awesome! so are the pics! :D

boychik

Thank you Fjellrev and Kirkoneill1988.

Kirkoneill1988

i hope to buy a gongfu set soon

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93

YUM! boychik has sent me some of the best shus!

This one is smooth and SWEET. It is lightly earthy and has a dark fruity note floating around. I did a long-ish steep and I’m really enjoying the bold flavor :)

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Thanks to mrmopar for this sample. It’s a mellow and woody tea with a hint of cinnamon. The liquor is rich and dark, like coffee. There is some earthiness there, and no off flavours at all. I would say that this is a very comfortable tea to drink, and I have been very comfortable drinking it since yesterday.

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I believe Bonnie wrote the definitive tasting note on this one two years ago. As I was writing my own review for my blog I kept noticing how nearly identical my experience was to hers – minus the sexy dating analogy (wow, hot stuff). For me this was a necessary session to overcome yesterday’s over indulgences. Way over did it. This one helped calm the stomach and left me with a pleasant calming peace that was remarkable spiritual like. I have never thought to actually use puerh in my private devotion time but maybe I will give it a go one day soon. Anyway, starts mellow with mineral, cedar, and horse tack notes. Blossoms later with bold flavors of browned cedar and horse tack. Then drifts back into more mellow but pronounced mineral and cedar, and ending with pleasant leather notes. Excellent cha qi.

TheTeaFairy

Inspirational.

mrmopar

Yum Yum!

gmathis

1 Timothy 6:17 …. the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy. Pu-erh counts!

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I have spent the past few days drinking this tea and I have enjoyed it. The dry leaf is musky with camphor notes, while the liquor is mellow and dark with hints of cedar and allspice. It is a warming tea and one to keep you going on a cold winter’s night (or through the endless travails of revision, as I am doing at the moment).

Flavors: Cedar

Preparation
205 °F / 96 °C 0 min, 15 sec 6 g 5 OZ / 150 ML
TheTeaFairy

Osmanthus always taste like peach to my. Gui Hua Osmanthus from Tealux is even more peachy than Teavivre, but doesn’t have that olive oil quality I found in Teavivre. Both will be in your next box, so you can decide for yourself :-)

TheTeaFairy

Lol, roughage, ignore the previous comment, it is meant for another post OBVIOUSLY :-) Oops…sorry!

Roughage

No worries. You raised a smile from me anyway and gave me a laugh. :)

TheTeaFairy

Then if it gave you a smile, it was a good mistake :-) I would love to start a box for you some day too… I have too many things going on right now, but let me know if my cupboard is of any interest to you, I would gladly share whatever you fancy when time is right, overseas swaps are always interesting :-)

Roughage

Thank you. A swap might be a good idea in the future then. I look forward to it.

DigniTea

I picked up this cake several months ago but I’ve not yet worked on it. Your comments remind me that it is probably time to sit down and try it.

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i enjoyed this tea for 2 days.
100ml gaiwan 5g 212F
Rinse, rest, 5/5/10/10/15/15/20/20/ etc
Wet leaves smell of prunes and apricots. this tea is very clean, burgundy clear, no off taste . It is sweet with some spice notes,maybe like cinnamon. had a tingling sensation. Also this tea is very creamy. call me crazy but i can compare all those notes to plum pudding.

Preparation
Boiling 0 min, 15 sec 5 g 3 OZ / 100 ML
Stephanie

Sounds wonderful :)

DeliriumsFrogs

Did you say Plum Pudding!? Yum! This sounds absolutely fantastic!

boychik

i think i’ll buy the whole cake.

DeliriumsFrogs

Yeah, this is definitely going on my ‘wish list’… I’m just staring at it on the site right now. lol

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89

A solid little cake. Nice full body, deep fermented taste. A touch of bitterness disappears after a few infusions. I have the 2009 and 2010 versions as well, only tried the 2009 so far and it is at least as good. It seems like these are pretty dependable cakes for a good price. Lots of infusions so it is a good deal. I got mine from tuocha.com.

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Today I “broke open” a new cake – the cake compression is heavy so I struggled to get it started. I ended up with tiny, tiny chunks and a bit of tea dust. Taste is rather smooth with no real astringency. Flavor not that distinctive – think I might have overleafed this time. Plan to turn these next few infusions into iced tea to drink in a day or two. Another time I’ll try breaking off another chunk from the cake and start over with the gaiwan so I’ll save my rating for later.

mrmopar

You need a tea pick for one of these. They are really compacted so tight this is a must or a fine point screwdriver will work too. Did you give this tea a “rinse” to re-hydrate it before brewing? The first brew is always really light. The flavor will increase with the longer subsequent steeps. be sure to use really hot water as this really gets the tea going.

DigniTea

I would answer each question affirmatively. I used a pick; I did rinse; water was boiling; four different brews. What I meant by stating “flavor not that distinctive” was that I could not distinguish anything specific. There was flavor (it was not weak tea) but it was very blah-quite mediocre. I’ve not given up on it but I need a restart. I may actually dump these same leaves into my glass tumbler where I can add more water and sip on it for awhile later today. If that doesn’t work then I’ll work on another chumk one day next week.

mrmopar

Got ya! Pu-erh can be tricky sometimes and +1 on the restart. I do this sometimes myself and hope to get it right. I remember the first time I tried to get one of these disc teas apart, ended up with a stuck hand! Lol.

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I figured since i was having purple rhyme today, i’d have red rhyme along side it just for kicks. this one is different from the other puerhs i’ve enjoyed from mandala…it’s smoother almost. more to come as i go through more steeps

ashmanra

I have both of those! Mrmopar helped me….um, I mean my husband….choose them for my Christmas present last year. LOL! They are quite good!

Sil

i am enjoying them a bunch

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Finishing off my sample of this, swiped from the Here’s Hoping teabox!

Man, being sick sucks, but my yixing pot is loving it! I’ve been steeping pu’er for like 3 days and the pot isn’t flavor sucking now. My yixing pot is having a grand time spending time with me, with the other pots getting all jealous.

Man, this is good, I could buy more of this pu’er. Maybe next Mandala order!

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Oh man, this is good!

I snagged this tea out of the Here’s Hoping Teabox. This pu’er is really mellow with a sweet cedar taste end of sip. There is a lingering aftertaste of earthy that is really good. No fermentation taste, not mushroomy or smokey. I could be convinced to buy a cake of this, crap, and I just did a Mandala order too. Oh well, next order then.

My husband (he doesn’t like tea) said this one tastes like overly strong chinese restaurant tea. LOL

mrmopar

I just started on a brewing of this Friday and on a cup now. Is there a government conspiracy or something I need to know about? LOL!

mrmopar

The 2010 version of this tea got me started into puerh.

Oolong Owl

I’m still working on this pu’er, it just keeps going with just slight changes to flavor. Yeah, for my first shu cake I was eyeing all Menghais – this one, the purple rhyme and a yellow 100g one, and I ended up with the yellow one, kinda wish I got all 3 lol! (I still need to try the yellow one)

Terri HarpLady

I’ve been eyeing the 3 pack… And the patty cake II … And….

mrmopar

Menghai is pretty good tea. They take a lot of steps to insure their product is not “forged”. If you need any tips or help hit me up I have a small puerh stock and may be able to direct you to some good ones.

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This is not the first time I’ve drank this, or even the 2nd, but apparently it is the first time I’m logging it here. It is very nice, with flavors of semolina & perhaps a dark dried fruit, like raisins or prunes. It’s very smooth, a nice depth to it, & doesn’t have any of the compost pile flavors that some Puers feature. It’s a little late at night for me to be drinking tea, but I’ve had a busy couple of days & I feel that I deserve some Shu, plus it doesn’t ever seem to keep me up, so I’m enjoying my last cup (steep # 8, I think).

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