Mandala Tea

I’ve been in “Sheng-ri La” all day :)

I can’t seem to keep myself away from this tea lately! sips guiltily

I’ll be hanging out with my new friend Sheng for the rest of the afternoon. We’ll be whispering and telling secrets in the corner and pretty much ignoring everyone else…don’t mind us! ;)

Seriously though, now I want to try more sheng pu-erhs darnit! I already have too many teas on my “want” list :/

Yay my first Sheng! I’m really glad I ended up liking this cute little cake. The first few steeps were very smokey and woodsy, but still somewhat light tasting compared with shu. The later steeps became less smokey and started to have this CRAZY sweet dried apricot aftertaste that lasts for several minutes after each sip! I get a flavor similar to this from certain oolongs. Anyway, there is also a difficult to describe creamy or nutty element. I look forward to exploring this tea further :)

Delicious. It initially has that bit of salty, almost marshy quality the first few milk oolongs I tried had in spades, but it’s very faint, and is quickly overtaken once steeped by a luscious sweet creamy smell and taste that’s wonderful. I’m not quite sure I love it more than the Teavivre one I tried, but it’s wonderful, a creamy warm treat in a cup, and if I wind up loving other Mandala teas enough to place regular orders in the future I’d definitely pick up more of this. Resteeps wonderfully too, of course. I’m such a sucker for sweet, creamy oolongs.

Pu erh, here I come. I was a little freaked out by the dry and brewing smell of this, as it was in fact fishy to me. It wasn’t super strong or the worst thing ever or anything, but it was mildly unpleasant and I wondered what I’d gotten myself into (underneath the fish, there was some great stuff though—mushroom mostly). At first sip, I was impressed how light and silky the texture is, no astringency or bitterness, just smooth sweetness. As it cools a bit, leather comes out along with more mushroomy, mossy soil, and while that might sound offputting it’s wonderful. Right at the very end of the cup I start to get intense, dark bricky chocolate.

I’m wondering if I’m missing some vital information to avoid the initial fishy smell (it receded by the time I finished my first steep), something as obvious as a 10 second rinse first or something (I just cavalierly followed the instructions on the package, which mention they’re just general ones). If I can overcome that in the future, I can definitely see enjoying shus. The texture and the way the tea comes across as rich and silky but without that general sweet potato and malt thing going on most of the nicer blacks I’ve tried have (and which I confess I’m getting kind of bored by) is great. It’s so soft but also full of flavor. This seems to be the week of mushroom and wet bark tea love for me, ha.

The second steep smells a bit like classic beef and mushroom stew.

this tea has frustrated my intelligence. true i can be stubborn and do things in my own manner, but i have followed the instructions for this beautiful tea. i love the smell, i love the appearance….. but i get a mediocre taste!

1 minute, 1.5 minutes…. 4 minutes. hotter, colder. nope.

it is so highly sought after, and there is no more to be had this year at least and with every steeping i am wasting my supply.

i will rate this one… i do not believe it is a failing on my part or my other teas would be impacted. very sad…. i really did want to love it as others do….

This is one of the samples Mandala generously sent me. So nice of them!

This brews up incredibly light, as to be expected given the nature of yellow tea. It’s a beautiful color in the cup. Smells fresh and wonderful dry and steeping. At first it was so, so light, but the flavor builds as you drink more of it. It’s way different from the yellow tea I had from Zen, which was surprisingly dark and tasted like if you took qualities from every basic kind of tea—black, green, white, and oolong—and mixed them all up. This is more the way I expected yellow tea to be—light, refreshing, with elements of green tea (nutty, buttery) and white tea (lightly floral, gently sweet) and none of the bitterness greens can sometimes have. It’s delicate and delicious, so sweet and clean tasting like sweet corn (it tastes like fresh corn silk smells, if that makes sense), but with a very subtle creamy nut element too. It would be perfect on a warm summer day; it calls to mind crisp sugary-sweet spring and summer vegetables. Yay!

Nom.

Sipdown, 142. Yes, my number went up substantially after that Teavivre package. Well, nothing to do but keep sipping down. Thanks to Sil for a sample of this one.

So keep trying with puers but I haven’t been able to get into them. This makes up Mandala’s phatty cake that everyone raves about, so once again this is a tea that am trying as a semi-last ditch effort to try a type of tea I tend not to care for.

I will say, this is the sweetest shu I’ve ever tried, at least on the first couple of steeps. But otherwise all I get is wood. Sweet wood, haha. I’m afraid I still don’t get shu. Oh well.

It was snowing here today. I am not ready for winter, don’t like this cold weather. Came home and was looking for pu’erh to add to a swap package, and decided that it was time to break into this cake. I’d been saving for a night when I can spend some time with it. Cold, wintery evening equals hockey game, spicy noodles and a good pu’erh. I have hockey, I have spicy noodles but I don’t have a good pu’er – I have a GREAT pu’erh.
I LOVE Mandala pu’erh and this one is no exception. I don’t even know what to say. This is totally different from Noble Mark – great but different. I’m not going to come up with the right words, but this is almost sweet – almost desserty. It’s smooth and gentle, not a trace of nasty. Sometimes I think a pu’erh is too gentle – but this one has enough happening that it’s gentle but not boring. I’m eating spicy noodles and this balances that spiciness perfectly. Is this better than Noble Mark – no I don’t think better is the right word – I’m going to say complimentary. I highly suggest that if you like pu’erh you should have both in your cupboard. :))

I’ve been craving Pu Erh for at least a week but have been busy clearing other teas from my stash. Today got to the point that I cannot wait any longer and I must have some Pu Erh.

This is a re-visited steep. In other words I have re-viewed this tea before.

The tea cake is made of large leaves that are a blend of beautiful Autumn colours such as: red, brown, green and gold. These have a high gloss shine/reflection.
Whilst raw it has a sweet and earthy smog like scent, wooden yet smoky and light.

Steeping in my 200ml Yixing Gongfu teapot.

First Steep – 30 seconds
Colour is light yellow with a sweet, smoky yet creamy damp earth scent.
Flavour is light with wood and earth tones that are sweet yet smoky, somewhat matching it’s raw scent. The sweet fog lingers into the after taste.

Second Steep – 30 seconds
Note – At this point the cake is almost fully separated.
Colour is now golden yellow and the scent has matured to newly present toasted hay and an increased dampness, almost musky. As well as the aforementioned sweet and smoky fog.
Flavour is thicker though beautifully sweet and the fog drifts around my mouth, coating everything in it’s path with it’s beauty. Also getting creamy notes which lighten the damp earth and wood. The overall after taste once the fog diminishes is very musky. It’s smoothness is very note worthy.

Steep 3 – 30 seconds
The fog is more defined in the steep, though still sweet yet smoky it is thicker and somewhat musty. I would say the musty quality has overtaken some of the wood and dampness. It feels so rich in my mouth, thick and creamy and completely coating my lips, tongue, cheeks and teeth. Believe we when I say this is a good thing!

This was very delicious, more so than I expected and so much so that I am sad to have only had a sample of it. This was a beautiful Sheng, one of the best I have had the pleasure of tasting. Though I stopped writing at steep 3 I will continue to steep this all afternoon.

The quality was great and the colours of the leaves were equally as nice to look at as they were to taste. Just as pleasing as the first time I tried this.

Thank you Dexter3657 for this sample.

Yixing teapot – 370ml of which I will only be filling half way as it’s for one so roughly 175ml-200ml
Tea weight – 6g
Water temp – 95°C
Steeping times – 15 second increments

It smells sweet like honeysuckle with delicate hints of wood, smoke and hay. Surprisingly sweet and smooth for a Sheng.

In flavour this is creamy, delicate, sweet, smoky and musky. The smoke is like velvet, it’s soft but rich and it lingers in the after taste. Further steeps reveal sweet wood and floral flavours but it remains thoroughly smoky and light.

A very delicious Pu Erh and easily one of my new favourites. I wish Mandala shipped to UK. :(

I’m not very experienced “roasted” teas. I find that Hojicha’s lose some of the dynamic and interesting deep green tea flavors, which is ok for me because of the satisfying roasty comforting flavor.

This tea has those roasty elements but it still has a lot of green tea flavor. I made this in a tea infuser ball and steeped it for probably around 3 or 4 minutes. The tea was a light amber. The taste started with a roasty warm base, and it had an almost milky mouthfeel and kind of that “green tea funk flavor” The roasted elements of this tea were subdued but it balanced nicely with the other flavors.
Not the best tea I’ve ever had but its something I wouldn’t mind drinking on a regular basis.

I woke up early this morning after working late last night.

First of all, it’s black tea and I needed the caffeine to kick me in the pants. So I steeped up some of this Lapsang from Mandala for the first time this morning.

The description is accurate on Mandala’s website. By the smell of the leaves, I was expecting to drink liquid smoke, but two American style cups in, I can tell you that the smokiness is subtle. It does not overpower the flavor of the leaves, and its very satisfying on its own. I may have committed a cardinal sin, but I added stevia and fresh lemon juice to my second cup as an experiment. This tea can handle both very well. The lemon enhanced the flavor and brought a smile to my face.

Overall, another excellent tea from Mandala! I recommend this tea if you’re looking for something different in a black other than an Assam, Darjeeling, or Keemun.

The little bundled up leaves look neat in the bag, a contrast between bright green and dark. Smells very fresh and floral while steeping, the leaves really expand while they warm up. Taste wise this is pretty floral, leaning towards lavender for me. This is one of the better “green” or lightly oxidized oolong teas I have tried thus far; drinking it is an enjoyable experience.

Additional notes: Sipdown of these from Terri a while back! Continuing comparison of all the pearls I have, though they will be sipdowns in most cases. These are amazing. Very intricate: Very dark chocolate but syrupy sweet. Hints of syrup flavor like the unique Red Pearls from PuriTea. But very wine like with hints of fruit, not sure which type of fruit though. Really nice combination of flavors! High up there on my list of favorite pearls… I guess they AREN’T all the same.
Steep #1 // rinse five pearls // just boiled // 2 min
Steep #2 // just boiled // 4 min