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Four Leaves Ripe from Mandala Tea

Steepster Score 3 Ratings Rate This Tea

82/100

Four Leaves Ripe

Pu-erh Tea by Mandala Tea

We are proud to offer our very own ripe pu’er tea! We (and our customers) are very happy with the finished product. While we love this tea now, we can hardly wait to see what 2 or 3 more years of aging will bring to the flavor of this tea!

The four leaves used in our ripe tea are from the Jinggu Tea Factory in Simao. The Jinggu tea factory used to be part of the CNNP state-owned tea factories. They started fermenting Pu’er in the mid-70’s and was the third factory ever to produce ripe pu’er!

The leaf used for our cake was turned into ripe pu’er in 2009 and is quite ready for enjoying now. We chose the blend and had the steaming and pressing done in April of 2010.

We hope you enjoy this addition to our extensive ripe pu’er selection. We think you will! And be sure to try our very own Mandala Silver Buds raw style pu’er cake, too!

2 Tasting Notes

Azzrian
81

Full review on http://sororiteasisters.com/ on the 12th of November 2012.
This is a great young pu’er.
I feel it could mature more but a great starting point with notes of leather and berry.
There is also a buttered toast element growing here.
A great starter Shu!

graceatblb
96

I experimented a bit with the steep time while brewing this tea so it’s probably a bit crazypants because it jumps all over the place. I think I will follow Garret’s suggested steep times from now on because it worked brilliantly with the Bu Lang Gong Ting.

1st Steep- 1 minute
Very mushroomy and earthy. It was pleasant in its earthiness and not at all overpowering. I think this may be the first earthy shu that I’ve liked.

2nd Steep-45 seconds
Still a bit earthy but with a nice leathery note. Very smooth.

3rd Steep-2 minutes
Yet again the third steep is my favorite. This steep was buttery with a bit of roastiness to it. I don’t know exactly what to compare it to but it brings to mind breakfast.

4th Steep-3 minutes
Still very buttery with a touch of honey. Perhaps a bit more intense than the 3rd steep.

5th Steep-1 minute
This was my final steep and it was lovely. It tasted like molasses. So very good.

I had to stop with this tea after the 5th steep because I tend to drink tea late at night. I know that’s probably not normal but I’m generally a not very normal person.

I loved Four Leaves. Perhaps not as much as Bu Lang Gong Ting but I think that one may be my benchmark tea. I really enjoyed the earthiness of this tea. If I was going to replace my morning cup of coffee—which I still need to be human—-this would be the one.